CircBioCityWaste: Converting urban waste streams into value-added products

CircBioCityWaste is based on an 'end-of-waste' approach, demonstrating new value chains from urban biowaste to biobased agrochemicals, such as biostimulants and biofertilizers. These products focus on sustainable agriculture by enhancing plant growth and soil health, alongside producing bioenergy as a clean energy source.

The biorefinery concept starts with collecting 'anaerobic digestion (AD) sludge' from selected biowaste streams. Pretreatment and extraction technologies are developed to recover fine agrochemicals. The remaining waste is combusted at low temperatures using fluidized bed combustion to produce bioenergy. This process reduces waste volume, destroys persistent organic pollutants, and leads to mineralization and concentration of phosphorus and other nutrients in the ash, which is explored as biofertilizer.

The impact of these agrochemicals on economically important crops is assessed through pot trials. CircBioCityWaste evaluates the sustainability of this multiproduct biorefinery and assesses the economic, social, and environmental impacts of the developed products and processes using life-cycle assessment methodologies.