Value from Wastewater

Value Creation from Wastewater


Reducing waste and the efficient use of water play an important role in addressing some of humanity's greatest challenges today - climate change and water scarcity. A promising solution is the implementation of a circular economy.

As one of the projects selected to benefit from the European Commission’s Horizon Results Booster, AFTERLIFE (GA no. 745737), along with ALICE (GA no. 734560), SCALIBUR (GA no. 817788), Run4life (GA no. 730285), and ZERO BRINE (GA no. 730390), has established the project group "Value Creation from Wastewater". These projects introduce solutions for wastewater treatment, recovery and reuse for both industrial and public sector utility operators and policy actors.


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AFTERLIFE PG Flyer Thumbnail

Factsheet: Value from wastewater

Page Summary:



Portfolio of Results


Wastewater Treatment and Recovery – Technical Process Innovations


ZERO BRINE Online Brine Platform

Digital matchmaking platform furthering industrial symbiosis by linking brine owners with mineral/water re-users and technology providers. Over 2500 registered users and counting. Seeking circular business opportunities for your company’s untreated brine streams or seeking secondary minerals? Register to the Online Brine Platform today!

Contact:
Technical University of Athens (NTUA):
[email protected]

More Information:
ZERO BRINE Online Brine Platform

ZERO BRINE - Brine Simulation Tools

ZERO BRINE has developed a software tool to help brine owners analyse treatment chains. The Remote Component Environment (RCE) is freely available and can be accessed by brine owners to simulate their case studies and to evaluate the techno-economic feasibility of treatment chains in different process industries. The tools, developed in Python and Matlab, cover technologies including nanofiltration, crystallisation, and many more.

Contact:
German Aerospace Center (DLR):
Benjamin Fuchs
firstname.lastname[at]dlr.de

More Information:
ZERO BRINE – Brine Simulation Tools

ZERO BRINE Special Issue: Circular Economy Solutions for Industrial Brines

In partnership with ELSEVIER, ZERO BRINE is proud to publish its Special Issue on Circular Economy Solutions for Industrial Brines as part of the Water Resources and Industry (WRI) series.

Contact:
Danielle Kutka (REVOLVE)
[email protected]

More Information:
ZERO BRINE Special Issue

Additional Resources:
ZERO BRINE publications

ZERO BRINE Pilots

ZERO BRINE media kits include factsheets on the pilot demonstrations for the demineralised water plant, coal mine, silica factory, and textile factory, contextualising the issue of brines, showcasing the technology schemes, and the business opportunities for recovered quality minerals and water. The factsheets and videos also highlight the key results of the demonstrations in terms of reductions in water use and energy use, environmental and economic benefits and recovered resources.

ZERO BRINE Training

The ZERO BRINE training aims to increase capacity building among authorities and business enterprises by contextualising issues of brine releases while introducing principles of circular economy, industrial symbiosis, and promoting the ZERO BRINE project and the Online Brine Platform (OBP) to inspire circular solutions for industry brine.

SCALIBUR Bioelectrochemical conversion of CO2

A bioelectrochemical conversion process that transforms CO2 extracted from biogas into valuable molecules to be used by chemical industries.

Contact:
Víctor Monsalvo
firstname.lastname[at]fcc.es

More Information:

SCALIBUR Optimised Anaerobic Digestion Process

To improve the bioconversion of sewage sludge,
Aqualia splits the anaerobic digestion process into two reactors and works with co-digestate.

SCALIBUR Biopolymer (PHA) production from sewage sludge & organic residues

The ‘PHARIO’ concept produces PHA by utilising bacteria that purify wastewater and are being fed with organic residues.

Contact:
Alan Werker
firstname.lastname[at]Wetsus.nl

Etteke Wypkema
first-initial.lastname[at]brabantsedelta.nl

More Information:

AFTERLIFE Multidisciplinary Design Optimisation Implementation Software

Software tool for the reduction of costs and time for design and implementation of advanced wastewater treatment technologies

Contact:
María López-Abelairas
firstname.lopez[at]idener.es

More Information:
www.idener.es

AFTERLIFE Process: Integrated waste and wastewater conversion into biobased VFA and biogas

Bio-based VFAs production from waste and wastewater for the reduction and mitigation of carbon footprint, valorisation of waste.

Contact:
Jesus Enrique Rodriguez Gamero
firstname.rodriguezgamero[at]innoven.it

More Information:
www.innoven.it

AFTERLIFE Cost-effective Cascade of Membrane Filtration Units for the Separation and Concentration of Wastewater

New processes for reuse water production and valuables recovery from wastewaters to be used as such or for valorisation

AFTERLIFE Recovery of high added value compounds/metabolites from wastewater

New processes for the selective extraction, fractionation and purification for the recovery of high added molecules for the food sector

Contact:
Sébastien Cajot
firstname.lastname[at]celabor.be

More Information:
www.celabor.be

AFTERLIFE Reused Water Production and Valuables Recovery Process

Optimized conditions for PHA production from fermented food waste streams using mixed microbial cultures

Contact:
Maria da Ascensão Carvalho Fernandes Miranda Reis
amr[at]fct.unl.pt

Contact:
María Auxiliadora Prieto Jiménez
auxi[at]cib.csic.es

AFTERLIFE Methodologies for the conversion of biopolymers into thermoplastic materials

Optimised formulation and processing for the production of PHA-based materials

Contact:
Tamara Oroz Mateo
firstname.oroz[at]lurederra.es

More Information:
“AFTERLIFE” Advances in the Revaluation of Wastewater Compound

Run4Life High temperature Anaerobic Digestion Process

Optimized conditions for fertiliser production from anaerobic digestate – Obtains safe fertilisers in a one-step treatment

Run4Life New Dual Flush toilets for an ultra-low flush vacuum system

Optimized water usage of a vacuum toilet

Run4Life Bio-Electrochemical system (BES) technology for nutrient recovery

Innovative technology for nutrient recovery from wastewater

Run4Life Three pipe system to treat wastewater and kitchen waste with optimal efficiency

Optimized infrastructure for wastewater and kitchen waste for optimal efficiency of the treatment and resource recovery

Contact:
Hamse Kjerstadius
firstname.lastname[at]nsva.se

More Information: 

Run4Life One-step fertiliser production

Nutrient and energy recovery from black water through hyper-thermophilic digestion

Contact:
P. Chatzopoulos
initial.lastname[at]desah.nl

More Information:

Demonstrations sites – H2020 project Run4Life (run4life-project.eu)

Run4Life Full-Scale Decentralised Wastewater Treatment and Nutrient Recovery Process from Segregated Wastewater

Full-scale decentralised applications of resource recovery from wastewater at an office building

Contact:
nicolas.morales.pereira[at]fcc.es

More Information:

Run4Life Wastewater reuse, nutrient recovery and energy recovery in a new city district

Full scale implementation wastewater treatment and resource recovery technologies for a larger number of houses and a variety of other buildings

Contact:
Lieven Demolder
firstname.lastname[at]cleanenergyinvest.be

Run4Life Commercial Tailor-made NPK Pellets Fertiliser

Increased marketability of fertiliser from wastewater

Contact:
Hamse Kjerstadius
firstname.lastname[at]nsva.se

More Information:
Fertiliser product fact sheet – Tailor-made NPK pellets

Run4Life Junior Science Lab

A lecture for children about wastewater treatment and recovery of nutrients from segregated wastewater streams, including a practical experiment

Contact:
Iemke Bisschops
firstname.lastname[at]wur.nl

More Information:
Junior Science Activity - Resource recovery from wastewater

Tools and Resources for Facility Operators


Online Brine Platform

Allows brine owners to offer untreated saline streams or already recovered materials to match with mineral and water re-users and technology/waste heat providers The results could be exploited by industries and companies all over the EU.

Contact:
[email protected]

More Information:
Zero Brine Website

ALICE Wastewater Plant Benchmarking Tool for Energy and Resources Management

The tool, trialled across 3 EU countries, was developed before the start of the project.

Contact:
[email protected]

More Information:
ALICE Website

ALICE Alternative Cognitive Mapping Approach

A new methodology to identify risk from climate change in the context of wastewater

ALICE Paper: A Review of Energy Optimization Modelling Tools for Decarbonising Wastewater Treatment Plants

Highlights the need to integrate energy benchmarking, resource recovery and renewables in a single platform

More Information:
ALICE Website

Run4Life Smart Resource Recover Platform

Decentralised platform able to collect data from the treatment processes, integrating data from physical components, and returning the identified KPIs on operational level; The platform includes both monitoring data (online and offline) and the modelling of the process. This platform gives added value to the operator allowing them to control the process and optimize it. The platform is built allowing the integration of data from physical layer/SCADA of any WWTP and it is easily configurable and scalable.

Contact:
nicolas.morales.pereira[at]fcc.es

Policy Recommendations


ZERO BRINE Policy Briefs for Experts and Policymakers and Dissemination Material

ZERO BRINE developed a core policy brief as well as three specialised policy briefs on Zero Pollution, the Industrial Emissions Directive, and the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive highlighting key recommendations as well as barriers and enablers to ensure the uptake of the ZERO BRINE technologies.

Contact:
Danielle Kutka (REVOLVE)
[email protected]

More Information:
ZERO BRINE Policy Briefs

SCALIBUR Position paper: Circular Policies for changing the biowaste system

Common position paper developed by four projects with recommendations for EU policymakers regarding innovative valorisation of biowaste and wastewater

ALICE Policy Report: Reinventing Water Pricing (PDF download)

The report looks at the structure of water prices in European countries with a focus on wastewater and the reuse of reclaimed wastewater with proposals on measures to encourage the efficient use of water, from reducing the percentage of the bill for consumption savings, bonuses to progressive pricing systems, which ensures that the higher the consumption, the greater the contribution to the costs of the water cycle.

Contact
[email protected]

More Information:
ALICE Website

ALICE Policy Report: Best practices and policy guidelines to implement municipal solutions for water reuse (PDF download)

The policy report provides guidelines for policy-makers and water managers on the managing of urban WW through centralized and decentralized systems and through a risk management approach. It also contains a description of best practices.

Data set on urban citizens’ preferences, attitudes, and willingness to pay for the attributes of innovative urban wastewater systems of UK and Spain (PDF download)

The data set is obtained from 1,000 respondents in each country to understand the public’s perception, attitudes and willingness to pay for the provision of the wastewater public service

Contact:
[email protected]

More Information:
ALICE Website

Run4Life Risk and sustainability assessment

Describes the risks and sustainability of the different technologies and approaches applied at the demonstration sites of Run4Life

Contact:
Maite Moreira
firstname.lastname[at]usc.es

Run4Life Mapping of stakeholders and expectations

Stakeholder and social and political context identification of the demonstration sites of Run4Life and the stakeholder engagement plan

Contact:
Beatriz Medina
firstname.lastname[at]weandb.org

More Information:
Social context – H2020 project Run4Life (run4life-project.eu)

The projects from the Value Creation for Wastewater Project Group (HRB PDESB AFTERLIFE) have received support from the HRB - Horizon Result Booster - an initiative funded by the European Commission, Directorate General for Research and Innovation, Unit J5, Common Service for Horizon 2020 Information and Data.