Europe’s agri-sector is facing both a sustainability and socio-economic crisis due to the combined challenges of increasing environmental pressures through fossil fuel consumption and waste generation, increasing dependence on imported plant-based protein sources (feed), and lack of well-paid rural employment. Biorefinery and waste to energy technologies that are being promoted as mechanisms by which agricultural challenges can be simultaneously addressed, have until now been presented as stand-alone agri-valorisation systems and not integrated processes that holistically take into consideration the technical and socio-economic aspects of all operations from input feedstocks to end- and side-products. Consequently, the EU is seeking greater resource efficiency and a switch to a bio-based economy to deliver firstly, a sustainable production of renewable resources and secondly, to produce a mechanism by which the production of food, feed, bio-based products, biofuels and bioenergy is maximised.
AgRefine proposes to disrupt the mechanism by which biomass is currently being used by cooperatively integrating innovative stand-alone technologies so that the highest value, socio economically beneficial products per input substrates, can be achieved.
AgRefine European Training Network is providing 15 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) core and advanced research skills as well as transferable skills that arm the ESRs with the necessary skills and knowledge to position Europe as the global leader in developing an agri-bioeconomy industry based on advanced biorefinery technologies. AgRefine aims to provide the EU with high-skilled human capital, able to cooperate across sectors, implement sustainable interdisciplinary solutions and make this outcome policy relevant.
The main goal of the AgRefine Network is to train PhD students to become the bioeconomy leaders of tomorrow with the necessary skills and knowledge to understand and address this mix of technology, system, and supply-chain challenges to position Europe as the global leader in developing an agri-bioeconomy industry based on advanced biorefinery technologies. The AgRefine integrated training programme will facilitate the amelioration of Europe’s agri-sector competitiveness and environmental sustainability challenges by creating new and optimising current agri-resource and agri-waste valorisation pathways. The goals of the network will be achieved by a unique combination of “hands-on” research training, non-academic placements, summer schools and workshops on research-related and transferable skills facilitated by the academic and non-academic composition of the consortium.
AgRefine has three research sub-objectives that will address the complete range of process engineering, life cycle assessment, supply chain management, and stakeholder acceptance challenges necessary to ensure that the optimal valorisation pathway is realised from a system level design and business case perspective which the 15 ESRs are working on:
Research Objective 1: Create the TPB technologies that will implement the valorisation cascade, whereby high to low quality leachates will be re-directed to ensure that optimal high to low valorisation cascade products per input feedstock qualities are observed at all times;
Research Objective 2: Deliver a system-level analysis that considers impacts across the full life cycle of the AgRefine bioeconomy to avoid ‘burden shifting;’
Research Objective 3: Develop a full value chain sustainability plan to create economically robust supply chains and sound business models.
The AgRefine Network consists of eight beneficiary partners and seven partner organisations:
Beneficiary Organisations:
University College Dublin - Ireland
Technical University of Denmark - Denmark
Technische Universität Wien - Austria
Ghent University - Belgium
Wageningen University & Research - Netherlands
Centre for Research and Technology Hellas - Greece
TBW Research - Austria
Bantry Marine Research Station - Ireland
Partner Organisation:
Tipperary County Council - Ireland
Avecom nv - Belgium
Clean Energy Solutions - Austria
BioG GmbH - Austria
European Biogas Association - Belgium
Innolab CVBA - Belgium
Enviro-eye Engineering Ltd. - Ireland.
