EVOBIO_Demo – Innovative biotechnological glycolic acid production from sewage sludge

Background

The path to the bioeconomy is a transformation process that changes established value chains and develops them into communicating value networks. The paradigm shift from wastewater treatment plants, which serve the purpose of cleaning up anthropogenic wastewater, to value-adding production sites as a significant pillar of a circular bioeconomy offers enormous market potential worldwide. The further development and combination of process steps provides a building block for the wastewater treatment plant of the future.

 

Project description 

In the EVOBIO_Demo research project, the recycling of sewage sludge from municipal wastewater treatment plants and from the innovative high-load digestion developed by Fraunhofer IGB is being further developed as the starting point for a regional closed-loop recycling system. The project is thus focused on the value-adding use of the solid material flows of a sewage treatment plant (sewage sludge).

 

Services

Early alignment of the research-driven development processes in EVOBIO_Demo with the needs of companies and markets is crucial for their industrial exploitation. Fraunhofer IMW focuses on the exploitation planning of the project and integrates three sub-perspectives:

(1) The transfer planning,
(2) the acceptance analysis, and
(3) the business model development

In the area of transfer planning, the competitive position of the solutions and their development status are evaluated through an international comparison on the basis of technology environment analyses.  

The acceptance analysis focuses on the question of the extent to which the research and development results of the project are considered valuable by companies in an international context. For business model development, various business model scenarios will be developed and compared on the basis of economic and ecological criteria in order to derive appropriate recommendations for action. These steps will be carried out in parallel with the technical work of the project.

 

Client

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (ZV)

 

Project partner

Fraunhofer UMSICHT (Coordination), Fraunhofer IGB

 

Project duration

04/01/2021 – 12/31/2021

Project sheet

EVOBIO_Demo

 

Early exploitation planning for the biobased circular economy