Waste recycling has significantly improved in past decades, but a large part of the organic fraction contained in municipal waste is still incinerated or sent to landfill. The EU-funded CIRCULAR BIOCARBON project will turn organic waste streams generated in cities into added-value products for industries and end-consumers, creating green bio-based materials and marketable products through a pool of cascading innovative technologies. CIRCULAR BIOCARBON value-added products include diamond-like carbon coatings, green graphene, tailor-made bio-based fertilisers, bio-plastic, and a variety of intermediate products.
 

To maximise replicability and boost potential market penetration, the project will operate the biorefinery for three years in Spain and Italy and establish consistent business and exploitation strategies. Organised through a pool of cascading technologies, the biorefinery starts with proper pre-treatment and anaerobic processing of mixed urban waste streams, of which the organic fraction is the main one, in order to treat all the biowaste produced by a medium-sized city. By the end of the project, a commercial-scale biorefinery will be fully operative. The project’s fundamental objective is to open up new business frameworks, based on a new circular vision of urban waste treatment towards a sustainable bioeconomy. Actors leading the territorial waste management schemes and policies will maximise its impact on the market, policy-makers and society. The CIRCULAR BIOCARBON project will operate in the Sesto San Giovanni suberbs, within Milan, Italy and within the Zaragoza province of Spain.

Biorefining biowaste and sewage sludge will improve the valorisation of underused yet significant waste streams, while avoiding the food-feed-fuel competition affecting agricultural feedstock. At the same time, it is highly replicable in urban areas across Europe, supporting the establishment of local and sustainable bio-based value chains. As well as reducing these impacts, biorefining enables substitutes for fossil-based products and their embodied emissions. The CIRCULAR BIOCARBON biorefinery will follow a cascading approach, maximising resource effectiveness by using biomass in products that create the most economic value over multiple lifetimes, while minimising losses.
 

Programme(s):
 

1. H2020-EU.3.2.: SOCIETAL CHALLENGES
 

• Food security
• sustainable agriculture and forestry
• marine
• maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy (Main programme)
   

2. H2020-EU.2.1.4.: INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP
 

• Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies
• Biotechnology

3. H2020-EU.3.2.6.: Bio-based Industries Joint Technology Initiative (BBI-JTI)

Topic(s):
 

• BBI-2020-SO1-F1: Valorise the organic fraction of municipal solid waste through an integrated biorefinery at commercial level

URBASER SA

Contact the project: https://circularbiocarbon.eu/press-corner

• SOCAMEX SA
• Cap Holding Spa
• CemeCon Scandinavia A/S
• Graphenea Semiconductor SL
• Novamont S.p.A.
• Agro Innovation International
• ICLEI European Secretariat GmbH (ICLEI Europasekretariat GmbH)
• Fundacio Universitaria Balmes
• Universidad de Valladolid
• Università Politecnica delle Marche

• Sesto San Giovanni (suburbs of Milan, city),
• Zaragoza (province)