WOW!
There are market opportunities for raw materials from sewage, but for this the sewage treatment plants and the industry need alignment. This calls for a transition: sewage treatment plants need to switch from treating sewage to producing valuable materials. On the other hand, market parties need to regard sewage as a valuable source instead of ‘dirty unsafe water’. Last but not least, the policies should better fit this new circular practice. To realize these opportunities the consortium aims to develop value chains for three different raw materials from sewage: cellulose, PHA bioplastics and lipids.
The following activities will be part of the project:
- Identify high potential value chains for raw materials from sewage.
- Develop a Decision Support Tool that guides sewage treatment plants in their transition towards a circular approach on sewage.
- Build and run three WOW! pilots to optimize and implement innovative recovery and upcycling techniques.
- Create bioproducts made out of sewage, such as bioplastics, biofuel and bio-char.
- Create national policy action plans and an EU policy roadmap.
During this project Technische Universität Kaiserslautern will start with lab scale experiments for bioplastics (PHA) production. The first experiments aim to develop process control strategies for later pilot scale application. Based on these results a pilot plant will be set up on the sewage treatment plant Buchenhofen in Wuppertal. The pilot plant will be run for at least on year to develop strategies for a stable process under realistic conditions and to influence the bioplastic properties in order to meet market demand. PHA enriched in bacteria will be extracted by project partners and compounded.
Project duration: 03/2018- 05/2022
Persons in charge:Thomas Uhrig M.Sc., Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heidrun Steinmetz, Julia Zimmer
Funding: Interreg North-West Europa program, www.nweurope.eu
