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Smart modular mobile biorefining of manure to zero-waste maximising resource and nutrient recovery for feed and fertiliser bioingredients in rural areas

Project description

Converting livestock manure into products for feed and fertilisers

Livestock farming is crucial for Europe’s rural economy, but it also leads to air and water pollution. Livestock is Europe’s primary source of ammonia and methane emissions. Current manure management causes soil and water pollution problems. Small-scale bio-refineries emerge as opportunities for rural diversification. The EU-funded MANUREFINERY project aims to create small-scale bio-refineries that convert livestock manure into valuable bio-based products for feed and fertilisers. The project focuses on scalability and replicability, as well as developing strategies for stakeholder engagement and social acceptance. The solution will be demonstrated at farms in Romania, Slovenia, and Spain, supporting the transition to a sustainable bio-economy in CEE regions.

Objective

Livestock farming is a crucial pillar of the rural economy in Europe. However, it also causes pollution with a significant impact on air quality and climate change. Europe annually produces over 1.4 billion tonnes of manure, with cattle contributing 75%, and pig and chickens representing 12% each. Livestock is by far the main primary European sub-sector responsible for NH3 (~1.5Mt/y) and CH4 (~166Mt/y) emissions. Despite many efforts in the past decades, current manure management and disposal on farmland as fertilizer still poses significant pollution problems such as soil degradation, eutrophication of surface waters and pollution of groundwater. In this vein, new opportunities are foreseen for small-scale biorefineries, which have the potential to provide diversification opportunities to the rural actors. In this context, ManuREfinery aims at deploying a smart, modular, mobile and sustainable small-scale decentralised biorefinery that will convert livestock manure into added value biobased feed (microbial protein, caproic acid, protein-enriched grass cake) and bioingredients (sodium nitrate, ammonium bicarbonate, p-rich ashes) for fertilisers.
The Manurefinery solution exhibits high scalability/replicability potential by integrating:
1) Advanced thermo- and bio-chemical modular and mobile feedstock conversion units.
2) Digital twin and data science for multicriteria decision making and process optimization, upscaling and replicability.
3) Sustainability (economic, social, environmental) and circularity assessment framework.
4) Strategies to boost the engagement of livestock stakeholders and enhance social acceptance of the solution.
5) New, sustainable and replicable business models for income diversification in the livestock sector.
ManuREfinery will be demonstrated at TRL 6-7 in 2 pig farms (Romania and Spain), 1 cow farm (Slovenia) and 1 poultry farm (Romania), thus fostering the transition of CEE regions towards a sustainable bieconomy.

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HORIZON-JU-IA - HORIZON JU Innovation Actions

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-JU-CBE-2023

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Coordinator

INSTITUTO TECNOLOGICO DE ARAGON
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 787 500,00
Address
MARIA DE LUNA 8
50018 ZARAGOZA
Spain

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Region
Noreste Aragón Zaragoza
Activity type
Research Organisations
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 787 500,00

Participants (20)

Partners (1)

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