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:
Identify high potential value chains for raw materials from sewage.
Develop a Decision Support Tool that guides sewage treatment plants in their transition towards a circular approach on sewage.
Build and run three WOW! pilots to optimize and implement innovative recovery and upcycling techniques.
Create bioproducts made out of sewage, such as bioplastics, biofuel and bio-char.
Create national policy action plans and an EU policy roadmap.
Biobased products from sewage... we have proven it is possible! Over the last 4 years the Interreg North-West Europe project team WOW! has started a transition where we re-use raw materials in sewage. We are happy to invite you to our hybrid conference on the 22nd of March in Tilburg, the Netherlands. Read More
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. Read More
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. Read More
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. Read More
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. Read More
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. Read More
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. Read More
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! Read More
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! Read More
On the 22nd of March, which was also world water day, the WOW! conference Making Impact with Wastewater took place. And yes, we made impact with wastewater! With +/- 50 participants in Tilburg, The Netherlands, and +/- 100 online we discussed the future of valuable materials from sewage. All of the project results were presented, the end products were showed at the market place and various statements were discussed during the panel discussions. We are very proud of the results reached in the WOW! project and we hope to have inspired you to continue further research on this topics. Read More
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
