Sewage contains valuable substances that can be used as raw materials for biobased products. However, in North West Europe this potential is hardly exploited yet. This results in loss of valuable materials, increased CO2-emmissions and less use of natural resources. The Interreg North-West Europe project WOW! - Wider business Opportunities for raw materials from Waste water (sewage) - aims to make the transition to a more circular approach by matching supply and demand of cellulose, lipids and PHA bioplastics from sewage. The international consortium consists of partners from the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Finland, Ireland and the Netherlands.
Valuable materials from sewage
There are market opportunities for raw materials from sewage, but for this the sewage treatment plants and the industry need alignment. This calls for a transition: sewage treatment plants need to switch from treating sewage to producing valuable materials. On the other hand, market parties need to regard sewage as a valuable source instead of ‘dirty unsafe water’. Last but not least, the policies should better fit this new circular practice. To realize these opportunities the consortium aims to develop value chains for three different raw materials from sewage: cellulose, PHA bioplastics and lipids.
The following activities will be part of the project:
100 Untere Lichtenplatzer Str.
Wuppertal
42289
Germany
47 Gottlieb-Daimler-Straße
Kaiserslautern
67663
Germany
162 Avenue de la Faïencerie
Luxembourg
L-1511
Luxembourg
124 De Schom
Genk
3600
Belgium
11 rue François ARAGO
Ifs
F-14123
France
PO Box 90116
Breda
4800RA
Netherlands
138 Brunnenstraße
Lünen
44536
Germany
200 Boeretang
Mol
2400
Belgium
9 Karveelweg
Maastricht
6222NJ
Netherlands
2 St John’s St
Coventry
CV12LZ
United Kingdom
10 Nijverheidsweg
Purmerend
1442LD
Netherlands
Department of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering, Museum Building , D02 DK07 Dublin, Ireland
Mukkulankatu 19, 15210 Lahti, Finland
10 Steenbokstraat
Apeldoorn
7324 AX
Netherlands
Lead partner
| Organisation | Address | Website | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regional Water Authority Vallei en Veluwe |
10 Steenbokstraat Apeldoorn 7324 AX Netherlands |
wow@vallei-veluwe.nl | www.vallei-veluwe.nl |
Biobased products from sewage... we have proven it is possible! Over the last 4 years the Interreg North-West Europe project team WOW! have started a transition where we re-use raw materials in sewage. We are happy to invite you to our hybrid end of project conference on the 22nd of March in Tilburg, the Netherlands.
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Have you always wondered what biobased products can be made out of sewage? Your senses will be stimulated at our presentation during the Aquarama trade fair on the 30th of September in Leuven.
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Lipids in influent wastewater are usually defined as a problem, causing operational issues for Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) operator. The pilot plant in Audun-le-Tiche – operated within the WOW!-project by University of Luxembourg in cooperation with SIVOM de l`Alzette and REMONDIS Aqua - is focusing on the targeted recovery of lipids present in sewage water, which can be further refined to biodiesel.
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A pilot plant for Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) bioplastics production is operated at the STP Wuppertal-Buchenhofen. The organic carbon from primary sludge is converted within a two-step biological process to PHA which can be used for further bioplastics production.
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The Influent of an STP consist of more that 60% of toilet paper (cellulose). By drying, pelletizing and pyrolysis we convert this into valuable products: bio-oil, acids, syngas and biochar. The biochar can be turned into activated carbon which will be used in the STP to remove pharmaceuticals. During this webinar we tell you all about the process and results of our cellulose pilot in Ede (Netherlands). We also give you an online tour at the cellulose pilot.
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Sewage and other wastewater streams contain valuable substances that can be used as raw materials for bio-based products. However, in Europe this potential is hardly exploited yet, which results in loss of valuable materials. At the same time the re-use of sewage water could lead to reduction of CO2-emmissions and reduction of the use of fossil fuels.
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One of the main issues in the current situation is the multi interpretation of EU legislation which unfortunately results in different national end-of-waste regulations. To really accelerate a zero pollution Europe, policy harmonisation between European Member States is crucial.
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During the Aquarama Trade Fair on the 29th of October, WOW! is organizing a webinar. We will tell you all about the project updates and results so far. Be there!
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The Interreg WOW! project is one of the initiators of an EU wide transition in which raw materials from sewage are reused as valuable bio-based products. We will subtract PHA to make bioplastics, extract and multiply lipids to make biofuel and use cellulose to make biochar.
Do you want to know more about the technologies? Or do you see possibilities to help us with the business uptake? Please feel welcome to join us this afternoon!
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Municipal sewage water contains considerable amounts of organic carbon which can be useful carbon-based materials like cellulose or lipids or converted into fatty acids. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) are produced in special processes, but neither sewage nor sewage sludge contains this substance in larger amounts without enrichment. Utilizing these valuable materials could reduce the use of natural resources and subsequent carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and hence, realize a circular economy. In the WOW project, a techno-economic assessment on the PHA production plant from primary sludge as feedstock was performed which shows that a positive business case is possible. Read More
Wastewater contains a lot of valuable materials such as fat, oil, and grease (FOG) that can be further processed to produce useful fuels such as biodiesel. Utilizing these valuable materials could reduce the use of natural resources and subsequent carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and hence, realize a circular economy. In the WOW project, a techno-economic assessment on biodiesel production from sewage sludge as substrate was performed which shows that a positive business case is possible. Read More
Sewage contains valuable substances that can be used as raw materials for biobased products. Think of fully biodegradable bioplastics, biochar or biodiesel. But where do you start? As part of the Interreg North-West Europe WOW! project, Avans University of Applied Sciences has developed a tool that answers the question: which valuable substances can I recover at my sewage treatment plants? The tool is designed to provide employees in the water sector with a simple tool in the decision-making process towards a more biobased and circular approach. Read More
The successful postdoctoral candidate will have shared research and project management responsibilities to support research and teaching activities relating to climate action and the circular economy. The candidate will support a leading European project (WOW!) that is advancing new circular economy opportunities by producing biobased products from wastewater, and provide teaching and management support to launch a progressive postgraduate programme in engineering for climate action to upskilling the workforce to address the climate and biodiversity challenge. Read More
On the 30th of September the Aquarama Trade Fair took place. WOW! organised a session about biobased products from sewage. We explained more about how we work together with business partners to extract valuable raw materials from sewage. For this we use several innovative approaches and techniques to create bio-char, bio-oil, bioplastics, biodiesel and more. We would like to share the presentations with you. Read More
Towards a sustainable production of bioplastics from residual flows, PHA2USE and the Interreg NWE project WoW! recently took another important step. In the first extraction campaign on a pilot scale, we succeeded in producing more than 18 kg of PHBV from sewage sludge. The produced PHBV, a fully biodegradable bioplastic, is now being tested by companies on various commercial applications. Read More
WOW!’s application for the Interreg North-West Europe call for capitalisation has been approved! The WOW! project is running now for 3 years. The challenge WOW! addresses is to create a transition in the urban water cycle. From a linear approach which ends up as sewage, up to a circular approach in which raw materials from sewage are recycled for biobased products. With the capitalisation call WOW! gets the opportunity to develop more various tools and activities to maximise the impact of project results, which is good news for the circular economy. Read More
Sewage contains valuable substances that can be used as raw materials for biobased products. WOW! has shown that recovery of raw materials from sewage is technically possible and that there is a potential market opportunity for these raw materials. However, to date this potential has hardly been exploited to its full potential in Europe resulting in loss of valuable materials, CO2-emmissions and less efficient use of natural resources. Read More
WOW! organized several online events during the EU Green Week 2021. We are pleased to see that there is lots of interest for the recovery of valuable materials from sewage. We hope you got inspired by our webinars. Did you miss one of the events? You can watch the webinars on youtube or/and download the presentations. Read More
On the 13th of May WoW! presented during the conference: Art of the possible - resource recovery from wastewater and bioresources. Jappe de Best from Avans University of Applied Sciences (NL) and Zuzana Dedova from University of Luxemburg were having a presentation about new value chains for carbon-based raw materials from wastewater. Read More
The partners within the WOW! team excecuted a market potential study. The objective is to identify viable value chains for 5 carbon based products (CBE) from sewage water: PHA-bioplastic, biodiesel, bio-oil, biochar, and acetic acid. In Figure 1-1 a simplified scheme of the recovery of the 5 CBEs is shown. The full report is finished and can be downloaded! We also created a summarizing factsheet for each product which you can find here:
When developing innovative technologies, such as the recovery from cellulose from wastewater and its conversion into for example bio-oil, it is important to have a clear idea of the economic performance of the process. A techno-economic analysis (TEA) helps to optimize the development of a process and to determine the most important parameters. In this project TEA's have been performed for PHA, lipids and cellulose.
> TEA Cellulose (coming soon)
The partners within the WOW! team excecuted a market potential study. The objective is to identify viable value chains for 5 carbon based products (CBE) from sewage water: PHA-bioplastic, biodiesel, bio-oil, biochar, and acetic acid. In Figure 1-1 a simplified scheme of the recovery of the 5 CBEs is shown. The full report is finished and can be downloaded!
The objective of work package 1 in the WOW! project is to identify viable value chains for 5 carbon based products from sewage: PHA-bioplastic, biodiesel, bio-oil, biochar, and acetic acid. This state of the art report is a result of the work package that focusses on the market potential of carbon based elements (CBEs) from sewage. This report contains analyses on the state of the art of current supply and market uptake of materials from sewage in North West Europe (NWE). Analyses comprise an overview on past (best practices) and current attempts to reuse CBEs.
Based on the information gathered in the report Critical success factors for valorization routes, two important drivers can be distinguished that determine whether resource recovery from sewage becomes a success in the EU: - Acceptance of raw materials from sewage - Policies related to use of products from sewage The drivers and critical success factors are elaborated further in the National Policy Action Plans which you can download below:
Partners within the WOW! team wrote a report that describes critical success factors for the recovery of raw materials from sewage and bringing these resources to the market based on lessons learned in EU subsidy projects. Why have some recovery techniques been successfully implemented while others are still in the pilot phase or did not succeed? Information was gathered via literature, an online questionnaire and interviews.
The WOW! team finished the State of Art report on legislation in Europe and the partner countries of the Interreg NW Europe project: Germany, UK, Luxembourg, Belgium, France and The Netherlands. The objective of this report was to describe the main juridical and policy context for bringing raw materials from wastewater to the market, including national differences.
