BIOREFINE: recycling inorganic chemicals from agro- and bio-industrial waste streams

Nutrient resources are rapidly depleting, significant amounts of fossil energy are used for the production of chemical fertilizers, whereas costs for energy and fertilizers are increasing. In the transition from a fossil based to a bio-based economy, it has therefore become an important challenge to maximally close the nutrient cycles and migrate to a more sustainable resource management, both from an economical as an ecological perspective. Until now this transition proved to be difficult to realize due to obstacles in (national) legislative systems, lack of integration of institutional and governance structures and lack of coordination between the actions undertaken by the different stakeholders and government levels. Consequently, there are still important challenges ahead to harmonise standards, techniques and markets in this area. The NWE region, with its high population density and intensive industrial and agricultural activity producing large amounts of residues, is an ideal testing ground for tackling these challenges. The Interreg project Biorefine aims to minimize residue flows and to economically valorise the nutrients that can be recovered from these residue flows. The latter would stimulate a bio-based economic growth thus creating a win-win situation for both the environment and the economy in the NWE region. To achieve this goal a cross-sectoral, broad international partnership was composed and five work packages were defined. Through the establishment of a (trans)national Nutrient Platform (WP1), research institutions, government and industries will be brought together in order to explore the opportunities for nutrient recuperation and valorization from waste streams. Based on this network, and a literature inventory (WP2), the best available techniques for nutrient recuperation will be selected, and pilot installations will be assessed (WP3). Also new strategies and synergies in cross-sectoral resource recovery will be explored and implemented in pilot scale installations and lab scale test ...