BioChem - Bioconversion of waste streams to produce high-value functional chemical products: fermentation and downstream purification

To shift to a sustainable society, it is not only imperative to devise innovative strategies to increase the efficiency of bio-based production processes but also to produce pure chemical products that are in demand and viable in comparison to fossil-based products.

The overall aim of this project is to establish a novel bio-based production platform through the co-fermentation of both municipal and industrial organic waste streams to produce pure and market-ready volatile fatty acids (VFAs). These can act as platform chemicals to replace petroleum-based products to help in the transition to a fossil-free and sustainable society.

The specific purpose is to:

develop a biobased strategy to increase tailor-made VFA production from waste by an integrated approach of bioaugmentation and co-fermentation of municipal and organic wastes,
separate and purify VFA mixtures into platform chemicals and for further ammonium acetate production and as leaching agents for valuable metal recovery from waste material,
translate the research results to implementation through the design of an integrated system, environmental and economic evaluation as well as stakeholder’s engagement.

In this way, this project will achieve a new biobased platform to help in the transition to a sustainable society.