Integration of Fossil Fuel-based with Bio-based Industries: The Use of Waste Streams and Biomass to Produce Syngas and Added Value Products

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) form a highly promising class of bioplastics for the transition from fossil fuel-based plastics to bio-renewable and biodegradable plastics. Mixed microbial consortia (MMC) are known to be able to produce PHAs from organic waste streams. Knowledge of key-microbes and their characteristics in PHA-producing consortia is necessary for further process optimization and direction towards synthesis of specific types of PHAs. In this study, a PHA-producing mixed microbial consortium (MMC) from an industrial pilot plant was characterized and further enriched on acetate in a laboratory-scale selector with a working volume of 5 L. 16S-rDNA microbiological population analysis of both the industrial pilot plant and the 5 L selector revealed that the most dominant species within the population is Thauera aminoaromatica MZ1T, a Gram-negative beta-proteobacterium belonging to the order of the Rhodocyclales. The relative abundance of this Thauera species increased from 24 to 40% after two months of enrichment in the selector-system, indicating a competitive advantage, possibly due to the storage of a reserve material such as PHA. First experiments with T. aminoaromatica MZ1T showed multiple intracellular granules when grown in pure culture on a growth medium with a C:N ratio of 10:1 and acetate as a carbon source. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analyses upon extraction of PHA from the pure culture confirmed polyhydroxybutyrate production by T. aminoaromatica MZ1T.

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PREDIS: innovative ways for predisposal treatment and monitoring of low and medium radioactive waste

Safety of Nuclear Waste Disposal ◽

10.5194/sand-1-9-2021 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 ◽

pp. 9-10

Author(s):

Ernst Niederleithinger ◽

Vera Lay ◽

Christian Köpp ◽

Erika Holt ◽

Maria Oksa

Keyword(s):

Radioactive Waste ◽

Organic Waste ◽

Pressure Sensors ◽

Current Data ◽

Added Value ◽

Machine Learning Techniques ◽

Waste Streams ◽

Integrity Assessment ◽

Technical Work ◽

Global Vision

Abstract. The EURATOM PREDIS project (http://www.predis-h2020.eu, last access: 25 October 2021) targets the development and implementation of activities for predisposal treatment of radioactive waste streams other than nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. It started on 1 September 2020 with a 4 year duration. The consortium includes 47 partners from 17 member states. The overall budget of the project is EUR 23.7 million, with EC contribution of EUR 14 million. The PREDIS project develops and increases the technological readiness level (TRL) of treatment and conditioning methodologies for wastes for which no adequate or industrially mature solutions are currently available, including metallic materials, liquid organic waste and solid organic waste. The PREDIS project also develops innovations in cemented waste handling and predisposal storage by testing and evaluating. The technical work packages align with priorities formulated within the Roadmap Theme 2 of EURAD (https://www.ejp-eurad.eu/sites/default/files/2021-09/2_Predisposal_Theme_Overview.pdf, last access: 15 October 2021), Nugenia Global Vision (https://snetp.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Global-vision-document-ves-1-april-2015-aa.pdf, last access: 15 October 2021) and with those identified by the project's industrial end users group (EUG). The PREDIS will produce tools guiding decision making on the added value of the developed technologies and their impact on the design, safety and economics of waste management and disposal. Four technical work packages are focusing on specific waste types: metallic, liquid organic, solid organic, and cemented wastes. For the first three, the main aim lies in processing, stabilizing, and packaging the different waste streams, e.g. by using novel geopolymers, to deliver items which are in line with national and international waste acceptance criteria. In contrast, the fourth technical work package has a different focus. To provide better ways for a safe and effective monitoring of cemented waste packages including prediction tools to assess the future integrity development during predisposal activities, several digital tools are evaluated and improved. Safety enhancement (e.g. less exposure of testing personnel) and cost-effectiveness are part of the intended impact. The work includes but is not limited to inspection methods, such as muon imaging, wireless sensors integrated into waste packages as well as external package and facility monitoring, such as remote fiber optic sensors. The sensors applied will go beyond radiation monitoring and include proxy parameters important for long-term integrity assessment (e.g. internal pressure). Sensors will also be made cost-effective to allow the installation of many more sensors compared to current practice. The measured data will be used in digital twins of the waste packages for specific simulations (geochemical, integrity) providing a prediction of future behavior. Machine learning techniques trained by the characterization of older waste packages will help to connect the models to the current data. All data (measured and simulated) will be collected in a joint database and connected to a decision framework to be used at actual facilities. The presentation includes detailed information about the various tools under consideration in the monitoring of cemented waste packages, their connection and first results of the research.

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EU fossil fuel imports and changes after Ukrainian crisis

SHS Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/shsconf/20207405005 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 74 ◽

pp. 05005

Author(s):

Peter Baláž ◽

Stanislav Zábojník ◽

Márius Hričovský

Keyword(s):

Energy Security ◽

Fossil Fuels ◽

Fossil Fuel ◽

Added Value ◽

Transport Costs ◽

Regional Effects ◽

Policy Goals ◽

The Difference ◽

Ukrainian Crisis ◽

Nord Stream

Russian-Ukrainian relations brought several challenges for the European energy security due to transportation corridors crossing the territory. Gas crisis in several CEE countries in early 2009 revealed brittle energy supplies stability of the net importers. The conflict in east Ukraine has brought new challenges for gas and oil shipments crossing the transport routes of Ukraine. Authors analyse transport corridors, presence of Nord Stream I and Nord Stream II projects as possible determinants of the importance of Ukrainian transport corridor and clarify exported volumes of fossil fuels from Russia to EU using the pipelines. The main objective of the article is to determine to what extent new transport routes for gas and oil by passing Ukraine will determine Slovak economy in the field of energy security as well as fiscal revenues. At the broader level, authors analyse potential effects for the whole EU in the field of energy security, transport costs but also CO2 footprint when using alternatives to pipelines. Article synthetises alternatives to Russian energy shipments, predominantly to CEE, and possible costs stemming from Ukrainian political changes. An added value of the article lies in analysis of the difference between commercial benefits of Russian supplies besides import dependence, regional effects and general energy policy goals fulfilment.

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Spent mushroom compost (SMC) – retrieved added value product closing loop in agricultural production

Acta Agraria Debreceniensis ◽

10.34101/actaagrar/150/1715 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 185-202 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Agnieszka Jasińska

Keyword(s):

Low Cost ◽

Agricultural Waste ◽

Waste Product ◽

Value Added ◽

Edible Mushroom ◽

Added Value ◽

Mushroom Compost ◽

Waste Streams ◽

Spent Mushroom Compost ◽

Global Environmental

Worldwide edible mushroom production on agro-industrial residues comprises of more than 11 million tons of fresh mushrooms per year. For 1 kg of mushrooms there is 5 kg of spent mushroom compost (SMC). This enormous amount of waste results in disposal problems. However, SMC is a waste product of the mushroom industry, which contains mycelium and high levels of remnant nutrients such as organic substances (N, P, K). The spent mushroom compost is usually intended for utilization, but there are increasing numbers of experiments focusing on its reuse in agricultural and horticultural production. Recently, the increase of the global environmental consciousness and stringent legislation have focused research towards the application of sustainable and circular processes. Innovative and environmentally friendly systems of utilisation of waste streams have increased interest of the scientific community. Circular economy implies that agricultural waste will be the source for retrieving high value-added compounds. The goal of the present work was to carry out a bibliographic review of the different scenarios, regarding the exploitation of this low cost feedstock with huge potential for valorisation.

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EMPLOYMENT AND ADDED VALUE IN EUROPEN UNION BIOECONOMY – A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVE

Annals of the Polish Association of Agricultural and Agribusiness Economists ◽

10.5604/01.3001.0014.6139 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol XXII (4) ◽

pp. 74-83

Author(s):

Jarosław Gołębiewski

Keyword(s):

Sustainable Development ◽

Energy Production ◽

Fossil Fuel ◽

Statistical Data ◽

Added Value ◽

Socioeconomic Indicators ◽

The European Union ◽

Criteria And Indicators ◽

Development Perspective ◽

The Eu

The purpose of this paper is to assess the development of bioeconomy taking two basic socioeconomic indicators into account, namely the contribution to employment and increase in prosperity. In 2018, the European Union adopted an updated strategy regarding bioeconomy. The purpose of this strategy is to substitute fossil fuel (coal) with biomass-based materials in industry and energy production, at the same time preserving the natural environment. As a result of this, the need arises to analyse the development of bioeconomy with regard to sustainable development principles. For this purpose, it is required to define the criteria and indicators allowing to evaluate the direction and rate of changes. However, monitoring the importance of bioeconomy is impeded due to a lack of statistics that covering the just evolving sectors partially based on biomass. Available statistical data provided the grounds for analysing changes in employment and added value in bioeconomy in the EU, in total and in its individual sectors. The obtained results indicate a dropping share of bioeconomy in employment and an increasing level of added value of bioeconomy in the years 2008-2017. individual sectors showed a different share in employment and added value of bioeconomy, as well as diverse dynamics of changes.

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The Impacts of Shanghai’s July 2019 Municipal Domestic Waste Management Regulations on Energy Production

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14227658 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (22) ◽

pp. 7658

Author(s):

Changjun Li ◽

Firooz Firoozmand ◽

Marie K. Harder

Keyword(s):

Food Waste ◽

Energy Production ◽

Fossil Fuel ◽

Biogas Production ◽

Waste Collection ◽

Waste Streams ◽

Domestic Waste ◽

The World ◽

Broad Policy ◽

Shanghai Municipality

Cities all over the world are trying to divert municipal waste away from landfill and fossil fuel-assisted incineration and toward circular economies where waste is converted into new resources. Residential food waste is the most challenging sub-stream, as it is the worst culprit in producing greenhouse gases in landfill and incineration, and it is almost impossible to have residents separate it cleanly at source. Here we investigate the outstanding diversion results of Shanghai Municipality since the introduction of the July 2019 Municipal Regulations, of over 9600 tons per day of clean food waste, still maintained two years later. In particular, we question why they might have increased so sharply after July 2019 and examine historic policies to determine broad policy intentions, their implementations, and officially reported tonnages of different resulting waste streams. It was found that many prior steps included infrastructure building and piloting different behavioral approaches. However, the July 2019 policy brought in legal responsibilities to very clearly defined roles for each stakeholder—including for the residents to sort and for local governances to support them—and this pulled all the operational elements together. The immediate and sustained jumps in clean food waste collection fed biogas production (0.1–1.0 GWh/day) and energy-from-waste (less wet) (5.4–8.6 GWh/day).

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Development of Biopolyesters (PHA) as Part of the Swiss Priority Program in Biotechnology

CHIMIA International Journal for Chemistry ◽

10.2533/chimia.2020.398 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 74 (5) ◽

pp. 398-401

Author(s):

Manfred Zinn

Keyword(s):

Growth Conditions ◽

Product Formation ◽

Added Value ◽

Waste Streams ◽

Two Phase ◽

Ongoing Research ◽

Swiss National Science Foundation ◽

Multi Stage ◽

Degradable Plastics ◽

Priority Program

The Swiss Priority Program in Biotechnology of the Swiss National Science Foundation that lasted between 1992 and 2001 had a boosting effect on many biotech disciplines and on the developments of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) in Switzerland in particular. The funding organization led by Prof. Oreste Ghisalba enabled a better understanding of the PHA biosynthesis and the development, as well as the implementation of novel bioprocesses (e.g. two-phase fermentations, multiple nutrient limited growth conditions, multi-stage chemostats, and product formation in different host organisms). However, production of PHA in Switzerland appeared to be impossible for cost reasons due to the strong competition from cheaper, petrol-based plastics. The recent reports on environmental issues with non-degradable plastics has triggered a general change in the perception of biodegradable plastics, giving them an added value and thus justifying a higher price. Ongoing research focuses on the sustainable production of PHAs using carbon waste streams, synthesis gas or even CO2

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Assessment of Integration between Lactic Acid, Biogas and Hydrochar Production in OFMSW Plants

Energies ◽

10.3390/en13246593 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (24) ◽

pp. 6593

Author(s):

Lucio Zaccariello ◽

Maria Laura Mastellone ◽

Luisa Ida D’Amelia ◽

Michelina Catauro ◽

Biagio Morrone

Keyword(s):

Lactic Acid ◽

Anaerobic Digestion ◽

Lactic Acid Production ◽

Hydrothermal Carbonization ◽

Added Value ◽

Operating Costs ◽

Waste Streams ◽

Carbonization Process ◽

Alternative Systems ◽

Interesting Solution

Biological treatments such as anaerobic digestion and composting are known to be the most widespread methods to deal with Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW). The production of biogas, a mix of methane and carbon dioxide, is worth but alone cannot solve the problems of waste disposal and recovery; moreover, the digestate could be stabilized by aerobic stabilization, which is one of the most widespread methods. The anaerobic digestion + composting integration converts 10% to 14% of the OFMSW into biogas, about 35–40% into compost and 35–40% into leachate. The economic sustainability could be rather increased by integrating the whole system with lactic acid production, because of the high added value and by substituting the composting process with the hydrothermal carbonization process. The assessment of this integrated scenario in term of mass balance demonstrates that the recovery of useful products with a potentially high economic added value increases, at the same time reducing the waste streams outgoing the plant. The economic evaluation of the operating costs for the traditional and the alternative systems confirms that the integration is a valid alternative and the most interesting solution is the utilization of the leachate produced during the anaerobic digestion process instead of fresh water required for the hydrothermal carbonization process.

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Olive Tree Leaves—A Source of Valuable Active Compounds

Processes ◽

10.3390/pr8091177 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (9) ◽

pp. 1177

Author(s):

Fereshteh Safarzadeh Markhali ◽

José A. Teixeira ◽

Cristina M. R. Rocha

Keyword(s):

Olive Tree ◽

Industrial Applications ◽

Added Value ◽

Bioactive Components ◽

Waste Streams ◽

Olive Leaves ◽

Health Promoting ◽

Olive Tree Leaves ◽

Fossil Fuel Energy ◽

By Products

The agricultural and processing activities of olive crops generate a substantial amount of food by-products, particularly olive leaves, which are mostly underexploited, representing a significant threat to the environment. Olive leaves are endowed with endogenous bioactive compounds. Their beneficial/health-promoting potential, together with environmental protection and circular economy, merit their exploitation to recover and reuse natural components that are potentially safer alternatives to synthetic counterparts. These biomass residues have great potential for extended industrial applications in food/dietary systems but have had limited commercial uses so far. In this regard, many researchers have endeavoured to determine a green/sustainable means to replace the conventional/inefficient methods currently used. This is not an easy task as a sustainable bio-processing approach entails careful designing to maximise the liberation of compounds with minimum use of (i) processing time, (ii) toxic solvent (iii) fossil fuel energy, and (iv) overall cost. Thus, it is necessary to device viable strategies to (i) optimise the extraction of valuable biomolecules from olive leaves and enable their conversion into high added-value products, and (ii) minimise generation of agro-industrial waste streams. This review provides an insight to the principal bioactive components naturally present in olive leaves, and an overview of the existing/proposed methods associated with their analysis, extraction, applications, and stability.

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Simultaneous CO2 Capture and Metal Purification from Waste Streams

10.26434/chemrxiv.7176125.v2 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Julien Leclaire ◽

Jean Septavaux ◽

Clara Tosi ◽

patrick jame ◽

Carlo Nervi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Global Warming ◽

Electric Vehicles ◽

Co2 Capture ◽

Carbon Capture ◽

Co2 Fixation ◽

Added Value ◽

Exhaust Gas ◽

Waste Streams ◽

Metal Separation ◽

Potential Strategy

The process of carbon capture, which is one of the most mature yet cost-intensive technology proposed to mitigate global warming has herein been explored as a potential strategy to generate dynamic ligands for metal separation and recovery. Spontaneous CO2 fixation by industrial amines such as diethylenetriamine affords dynamic arrays of interconverting species, from which tailored subsets can be selected yielding organometallic adducts of contrasted solubility. Quantitative compositional analyses of the phases produced with varying CO2 loadings allow to elucidate the underpining self-sorting scenario induced by each metal, and to identify the conditions affording optimal individual separation by precipitation. To illustrate the potentiality of this approach, which could bring substantial added value to the CO2 capture and utilization chain value, bimetallic separation was conducted directly from exhaust gas of an internal combustrion engine vehicle, and the three constituents of the alloys used to produce the cathodes of electric vehicles were separated and recovered by successive CO2-induced selective precipitations. This study provides a potential framework to integrated CO2 capture and utilization and paves the way toward the design of CO2-sourced sustainable processes.<br>

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