New technological applications for wet biomass waste stream products

Solutions developed

The existing treatment methods for these streams are mainly incineration or landfilling. A small amount is composted, digested anaerobically or used as animal fodder. Based on Council Directive 1999/31/EC biowaste with more than 3% organic content is no longer accepted for landfilling as the directive is intended to prevent or entirely reduce the adverse effects of waste landfilling on the environment by introducing strict technical requirements. It limits even further the legal ways for biowaste disposal and sets the basis for developing new technologies for its reuse. By 2020 the EU Member States could be generating 45% more waste than in 1995. Following this the Waste Framework Directive sets the basic concepts and definitions related to waste management. The concept behind NEWAPP is that wet biomass can be a resource more than a waste and does not need to be disposed of in the costly and inefficient way it is nowadays.

Main results

The alternative is to create a continuous system which will allow to recover heat in an energy efficient for tailor made HTC products way. NEWAPP will gather international researchers, industrial associations and SMEs from different EU countries in its thirty months lifecycle to assess the requirements and constraints of SME-AGs in the reuse of wet biomass with HTC, analyse the potentials of the different wet biomass streams for using them for HTC, perform intensive testing with this innovative system technology for heat recovery and efficiency for tailor made HTC products launch a standardization process for the two most promising waste streams to prove their viability for commercial applications.