Project description DEENESFRITPL Converting food waste into valuable products Food waste is one of the biggest problems society is facing today. Large amounts are sent to landfill sites where they are slowly broken down into methane and carbon dioxide. Anaerobic digestion, which converts food waste matter into biogas, offers a sustainable route to valorising the enormous untapped potential of food waste. However, the use of food waste as feedstock in biorefineries is still at an early stage of development. The EU-funded UP-GRAD project aims to improve the performance and stability of anaerobic digestion by developing a two-stage lactate-based process. Combining knowledge from different fields – environmental engineering, biochemistry, microbiology, ecogenomics, transcriptomics, bioinformatics and economics – the project aims to promote practical solutions for next-generation food waste biorefineries. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective Food waste (FW) and plastic pollution represent two of the most relevant environmental, economic and societal problems in this XXI century. Anaerobic digestion (AD) of FW linked with biogas bioconversion into biopolymers constitute a sustainable route to valorise the enormous untapped potential of FW. However, the full-scale implementation of FW-AD biogas based biorefineries is still limited by the need to enhance stability and prevent inhibition during FW-AD and to overcome the CH4 mass transfer and biological limitations encountered in methanotrophic processes. UP-GRAD aims at upgrading the performance and stability of FW-AD by engineering a novel 2-stage lactate-based AD process coupled with the development of innovative cost-competitive strategies for improving biogas valorisation as a feedstock for the synthesis of tailor-made, high-quality, marketable biopolymers. In this context, UP-GRAD will focus on the enrichment of both industrially robust hydrolytic-acidogenic lactate fermenting inocula and mixed biopolymer-accumulating methanotrophic consortia, and on the optimisation of integrated AD processes and novel high mass transfer nanobubble bioreactors. State-of-art molecular assays devoted to bringing a deeper understanding of the ecological factors tuning metabolic pathways and performance, and of the structure and functionality of the communities involved in the hydrolytic-acidogenic, methanogenic and methanotrophic stages will be conducted during an academic secondment. In addition, a techno-economic analysis and technology-uptake roadmap will be performed during a secondment in an international FW management company. UP-GRAD will apply a cross-disciplinary approach, involving environmental engineering, biochemistry, microbiology, ecogenomics, transcriptomics, bioinformatics and economics, allowing the candidate to create, disseminate and apply a new knowledge that will foster practical solutions for next-generation AD and flexible biogas biorefineries. Fields of science engineering and technologyenvironmental biotechnologybioremediationbioreactorssocial scienceseconomics and businesseconomicsengineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringnatural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologyengineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybioprocessing technologiesfermentation Keywords Acidogenesis biogas biogas-based biorefinery bioplastics ecogenomics food waste high-mass transfer bioreactor lactate fermentation mixed methanotrophic culture polyhydroxyalkanoates Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2019 - Individual Fellowships Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2019 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF) Coordinator UNIVERSIDAD DE VALLADOLID Net EU contribution € 160 932,48 Address Plaza santa cruz 8 palacio de santa cruz 47002 Valladolid Spain See on map Region Centro (ES) Castilla y León Valladolid Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00
