Media

The AFTERLIFE consortium demonstrates a new way of wastewater treatment that simultaneously recovers compounds of interest while converting remaining organic matter into a high-volume added value bio-based polymer.

Find the full article here: www.renewable-carbon.eu/news/converting-wastewater-into-bio-based-polymer-essential-oils-phenolic-extracts-and-clean-water-the-afterlife-project-presents-its-results

Here you can find all the public deliverables produced during the AFTERLIFE project

D.7.1. Hot spot LCA analysis for further optimisation

D.7.2. Final Life-cycle assessment

D.7.3. Hot spot analysis for further optimisation

D.7.4. Final Techno-economic assessment

D.7.5. Social and socio-economic impact of the processes and products

D.8.2. Website

D.8.3. Leaflet on the project

D.8.4. Video

D.8.5. Stakeholder workshop

D.8.6. Dissemination and exploitation activities

January 2022:

The AFTERLIFE pilot plants have been operated for the validation of the technology at technology readiness level (TRL) 5. The pilot lines have been deployed at BBEU premises in Belgium for the processing of the four wastewaters included in AFTERLIFE:

• from the confectionery industry
• from cheese manufacturing
• and two streams from citric fruit processing (fruit juice line and essential oils line).

The treatment capacity of the operated pilots was 1 cubic metre of wastewater per day.

Jake Wastewater Line at BBEU

Heritage Wastewater Line at BBEU

The Jake wastewater line (confectionery industry) and the Heritage wastewater line (cheese manufacturing) were focused on the conversion into biopolymers (PHA) while Citromil wastewater lines (citric fruit processing) have been considered as more promising for the recovery of value-added compounds, such as essential oils and phenolic-rich extracts.

Citromil JL Wastewater Line at BBEU

Citromil EO Wastewater Line at BBEU

The different pilot lines have been operated sequentially and stopped at the end of August 2021. The production of essential oils and phenolic extracts was well aligned with the lab-scale experiments as well as filtration, which have been adapted to the available equipment, and anaerobic fermentation steps. Besides, different alternatives have been tested for PHA production to overcome the challenges found at the pilot scale.

January 2022:

Two main groups of products are obtained in AFTERLIFE:

1. food
2. plastic goods

Essential oils and phenolic extracts have been produced by CELABOR and tested by CTC in food products, including:

• smoothies
• mayonnaise
• green olives
• fresh meat
• lettuce gazpacho

The antimicrobial, antioxidant and organoleptic properties have been evaluated for each product with good results for most of them.

Production of PHA-based materials

The production of PHA-based materials has been performed by Lurederra. The PHA has been combined with another bio-based polymer to improve their mechanical properties. The obtained material has been used successfully by CELABOR for the production of plastics trays for food packaging.

Plastic Tray produced by CELABOR

Paper published by AFTERLIFE consortium:

Membrane-based conceptual design of reuse water production from candy factory wastewater

September 2021 by Hanna Kyllönen et al.

Graphical Abstract, Hanna Kyllönen et al. September 2021

AFTERLIFE's presence at the BBI JU stakeholder forum in Brussels 2019

AFTERLIFE was presented at the BBI JU stakeholder forum on 3-4 December 2019 in Brussels. This public event brought together the bio-based industries community and facilitate open discussion on the impact, achievements and strategic direction of the BBI JU projects. AFTERLIFE presented at the stand and Dr. María López gave a presentation about the project. (In the picture: Dr. María López and Dr. Seena Koyadan at the AFTERLIFE stand)

AFTERLIFE project in IWA RR 2019 conference, September 2019

AFTERLIFE has been presented in the IWA Resource Recovery 2019 conference in Venice on 11^th September 2019. The project objectives and initial results have been explained in a presentation entitled “Compounds of interest in wastewater from food processing industries: H2020 AFTERLIFE project” in the session “Road to biorefinery and WRRF implementation”. Besides that AFTERLIFE was represented in a poster about the work developed by NOVAID in the production of PHA using mixed cultures. The poster entitled “Selecting a PHA Accumulating Mixed Microbial Culture Using Fermented Wastewater from a Sweets Manufacturing Industry” was part of the poster session at the conference. Finally, AFTERLIFE was also present in the stand of INNOVEN in the conference that has received the visits of the members of the consortium that have attended the conference (pictures above).

AFTERLIFE general assembly meeting, May 2019

The second general assembly was hosted by Celabor in their facility located at Herve, Belgium. Very constructive meeting and visit to the laboratory facility. The consortium thanks to Celabor for hosting.

AFTERLIFE general assembly meeting, October 2018

AFTERLIFE’s first general assembly meeting was held in Espoo, Finland. Consortium partner VTT hosted the meeting. Members have great discussions and after the meeting, we enjoyed the VTT facility visit.

AFTERLIFE kick-off meeting, September 2017

The AFTERLIFE Kick-off meeting was held on September 11th and 12th, 2017 at Hotel Palace, Via F. Lombardi, 13 – 70122 Bari, Italy