CAFIPLA tackled two socio-economic problems that are of increasing concern in the EU and beyond. The first problem concerns the growing feedstock demand from the bio-economy. With sustainability becoming more and more an important decision factor when buying consumer products, bio-based products are a fast-growing market. Although this is per se a positive trend, it leads to a higher demand for organic feedstocks, which are mainly coming from primary agricultural production (starch, sugar and vegetable oil). As such these are in direct competition with food and feed production and can lead to undesired deforestation or other land use changes to farmland. Furthermore, with an import dependency of > 50%, it also leaves Europe vulnerable to international price fluctuations for these commodities.
The second problem concerns the environmental, economic and social problems associated with (heterogeneous) bio-waste treatment. These waste streams have a very diverse origin and composition and their quantity and quality can vary throughout the year. A landfill ban on bio-waste has already eliminated the most noxious form of dealing with these waste types yet the treatment is currently still limited to incineration, or AD and composting at best. The use of these bio-waste streams as alternative feedstock for the bio-industry is currently limited because of the heterogeneous composition of these waste streams, and/or because of the fluctuating or limited availability.
The 3-year CAFIPLA project worked on a radically innovative biomass pre-treatment approach for bio-economy applications The project developed an integrated biomass valorisation strategy that combines the carboxylic acid and fibre recovery platform (CAP/FRP). CAFIPLA firstly optimised the separation of the easily biodegradable fraction and recalcitrant biomass, as input for the Carboxylic Acid Platform (CAP) and Fibre Recovery Platform (FRP), respectively. This allowed the implementation of tailored valorisation strategies for both routes, which in turn allowed the use of heterogeneous biowaste as input, while still ensuring high overall yields. In the CAP, research focused on process control strategies to obtain specific spectra of carboxylic acids to feed into bioproduction of microbial protein, PHA or caproic acid biooil. In the FRP, fractionation into different fibre ranges resulted in intermediates that could be applied in divers applications (packaging, insulation, construction, etc.). Finally, a TRL5 pilot was set up and demonstrated the CAFIPLA up-scaling potential. The implementation of the CAFIPLA approach will improve sustainability and cost-effectiveness of biomass pre-treatment. The project furthermore studied the biomass supply chain and the business models for future exploitation.
