Inés del Campo – Developing a circular economy concept for agricultural residues
Project coordinator Inés del Campo, Senior Research and Development Engineer at the Biomass Department of Spain’s Renewable Energy Centre (CENER) explains the BIOrescue concept. Where does the BIOrescue project originate from? In February 2015, several BIOrescue partners, including CENER, Monaghan Mushroom, CLEA Technology, MetGen and the University of Naples, met at a matchmaking event organised by the Bio-Based Joint Undertaking (BBI-JU) in Brussels and we together started elaborating a new concept for mushroom compost recovery. Once the technical process was agreed, we invited other partners to join the team to complete our expertise and submitted the new concept in a proposal for the 2015 call for funding of the BBI-JU. As mushroom compost accounts for 3 million tonnes of waste each year in the European Union, the BIOrescue concept raised interest in the BBI-JU and was selected for funding. After some technical discussions, the project was finally ready to start in September 2016 and we met with all the partners at CENER’s premises during two days to kick start and organise the work. What will the BIOrescue concept bring to mushroom farmers? The advantage of using the BIOrescue biorefinery concept is twofold for mushroom farmers. On the one hand, they can recover and repurpose a vast majority of their mushroom compost, thus avoiding costly disposal costs, and on the other hand, the products issued from the recovery can be either used directly in their mushroom farm or sold to external stakeholders from different sectors. Within BIOrescue, we are testing the possibility of converting mushroom compost into bio-based products, such as horticultural fertiliser, biodegradable pesticide for insect pest control or biodegradable nanocarriers for drug or fertiliser encapsulation. In addition, the process includes the recycling of enzymes contained in mushroom compost and their combination with other existing enzymes for the optimisation of biomass conversion processes and the creation of new enzymes for biofuels or energy production. Will this concept be replicable in other sectors? Within BIOrescue, we aim to develop more environmentally friendly bioproducts capable of replacing some fossil-fuel based ones existing on the market. After the project, the concept we are currently testing will be integrated in a mushroom farm in Ireland owned by Monaghan Mushrooms, that will be converted into a biorefinery. In practice, the BIOrescue concept is very flexible and based on a multiple-feedstock strategy. It means that it will be replicable not only in other mushroom farms but also with other agricultural by-products. In fact, the full title of the project is “Enhanced bioconversion of agricultural residues through cascading use” and tests will be carried out within the project to combine mushroom compost with other underutilised agricultural feedstocks such as cereal straw, hops and sugar beet residues, apple pomace, citrus peels and olive tree prunings. To foster the replication of the concept, partners are currently assessing the availability of these feedstocks during the entire year and their composition in terms of bioactive compounds and carbohydrates, which are key elements for the biorefinery process. We hope that the BIOrescue concept will be further developed in other agricultural sectors after the project, to stimulate the adoption of circular economy principles on the European market. For more information, please visit the BIOrescue website at www.biorescue.eu.
Countries
Belgium, Germany, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Italy, United Kingdom