FERTILWASTES

• Total project budget: 1.335.243,15€

• Start Date: 01/10/2019

  End Date: 31/05/2022

• Project website: www.fertilwastes.com/

Existing biomass, waste and effluent treatment systems, such as anaerobic digestion and composting, produce co-products with some agronomic value, but with inadequate nutrient ratios depending on crop requirements. In parallel, new technologies for valorising biomass and effluents such as pyrolysis and microalgae cultivation are emerging. All co-products generated by these technologies (digestate, compost, biochar, microalgae) present an agronomic interest but with low economic value. FERTILWASTES want to develop and promote a better acceptance on the market of these co-products to create new agricultural products with higher added value (for example, biodegradable horticultural pots with or without fertilization action, biostimulants or slow fertilizers).

The project will provide technical guidance needed to formulate and standardize competitive innovative products, which will then have regional distribution and transcendence beyond the POCTEFA territory.

FERTILWASTES brings together an interdisciplinary and complementary group to face these challenges. Existing co-products and emerging processes (pyrolysis, gasification, microalgae) will be combined to identify the products with the highest added value. Currently, there has been an emphasis on the development and research of the co-products used individually (digestate, compost, biochar, algae), but it has been seen that they have a weak value in the market, that is why FERTILWASTES proposes to combine them to have a greater agronomic value.

• The steps to achieve this are:
• The characterization of waste streams, biomasses and effluents and the optimization of transformation processes
• Participatory processes with the stakeholders of the territory
• Development of new products for agriculture by combining co-products
• Agronomic testing and product validation
• Analysis of social, economic and environmental aspects

Project 65% co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Interreg V-A Spain-France-Andorra Programme (POCTEFA 2014-2020).