Circular Economy: Use of Wastewater, Solid and Gaseous Waste

The transformation to a sustainable circular economy requires new processes for the utilization of residual materials. Fraunhofer IGB develops processes for recovering valuable substances from wastewater, solid waste and waste gas – from laboratory to pilot and demonstration scale. With its expertise in the digitization, scaling of processes and own pilot plants, the institute supports start-ups, SMEs, municipalities, public utilities and special-purpose associations in the implementation of new technologies. 

Until now, by-products and waste from industry and local authorities have often been disposed of. In a sustainable circular economy, however, residual and waste materials represent an essential resource for new products.

For a sustainable transition it is imperative that …

• carbon from fossil deposits is no longer released into the atmosphere. It should be recycled and, where possible, bound in valuable materials.
• nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus are equally recirculated, with minimal energy consumption and without any negative impact on the environment (thus avoiding over-fertilization and eutrophication).
• intelligent management (e.g. avoiding impurities or dilution) and good process engineering (material separation, purification, conversion, etc.) enable economical and efficient resource recovery and recycling.
• companies, municipalities and countries use the finite natural and fossil resources more efficiently and intelligently and to recover ingredients for material or energy use in line with the circular economy approach.

Benefit from know-how and infrastructure 

In our laboratories and technical centers, we investigate basic principles such as the torrefaction or fermentability of various biogenic residues and possibilities for recovering nutrients, and develop concepts for large-scale implementation.

Pilot and demonstration plants are available for some processes so that they can be used and tested either in our technical centers or directly on site at locations where waste is produced.

Our range of services also includes the planning, design and construction of pilot and demonstration plants for specific applications. For large-scale plants, the basic and detailed engineering is carried out by plant engineers from our industrial partners.

Support all the way to market launch

Fraunhofer IGB develops new processes and supports companies with its expertise and technical equipment, as well as in scaling up processes and designing and constructing pilot plants: from technical realization and commissioning to issues of process safety, regulatory matters, sustainability and economic efficiency.

In addition, we provide you with state-of-the-art infrastructure and apparatus technology with our own pilot plants. This not only saves you costs, but also reduces development risks.

We transfer processes to pilot scale.

• Selection of the most suitable equipment
• Process design for optimal integration of all process steps
• Optimization in terms of product yield and quality, material and energy efficiency
• Support up to implementation in the company / handover to a contract manufacturer or plant design

You use our know-how and our pilot plants to optimize your processes.

We provide our pilot plants, some of which are mobile, for testing processes in our technical centers or on your premises. 

• By working with us, you save on investments in your own pilot plants.
• The use of existing pilot systems saves you time, so that the market launch is significantly accelerated.
• You do not need to assign staff to operate the plants.
• We support you in identifying grant initiatives, for example as part of the "Industrial Bioeconomy" call for proposals from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK).

Use case: High-load digestion for utilizing organic residues

A reasonable way to utilize complex waste streams such as sewage sludge, liquid manure, biowaste or other organic residues is to digest the organic matter using high-load digestion. The process developed at IGB to increase the efficiency of sewage sludge digestion is characterized by a significantly improved efficiency, short retention times and a high degree of degradation compared to conventional digestion processes, combined with a significantly increased yield of biogas as a regenerative source of carbon and energy. High-load digestion systems are individually dimensioned and designed with regard to their integration into the overall sludge treatment process of a wastewater treatment plant. For the successful implementation of a high-load digestion system, we investigate the digestibility, e.g. of the raw sludge, in high-load operation on a lab scale beforehand.

If required, we can also implement the high-load digestion process on a pilot/demonstration scale at the wastewater treatment plant and operate it on site. 

Use case: Recovery of nutrients

As the main components of fertilizers, nutrients are indispensable for global food production. Until now, they have been removed from the agricultural ecosystem with the harvest of crops. Not only liquid manure and fermentation residues, but also municipal wastewater and residues from the food industry are rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium or calcium. Fraunhofer IGB has developed various technologies and processes to recover valuable nutrients from agricultural and municipal waste fractions and process them into plant-available fertilizers.

We would be happy to investigate how nutrients can also be recovered from your waste materials.

We demonstrate new processes in a funded (joint) project.

• Identification of suitable grant initiatives and necessary partners
• Elaboration of project structures
• Coordination of joint projects as required
• Scaling in existing plants or conceptual design and new construction of dedicated plants
• Joint marketing and licensing with shared intellectual property

Joint project examples: pilot plants for the demonstration of waste and wastewater biorefineries

Biorefineries can be used to recycle organic residues in a variety of ways. Apart from the raw materials used, the principle of a biorefinery is similar to that of an oil refinery, in which a complex raw material is separated into individual fractions or components.

Through the biotechnological, chemical, electrochemical or thermal conversion of residual materials according to the principle of a biorefinery, various value-creating products can be produced: Basic chemicals and biohydrogen, algae biomass and biochar, high-quality organic fertilizers and many more.

For the demonstration on a larger scale, various processes were combined for the first time in pilot plants and tested under real conditions. 

Selected current examples of cooperation in joint research projects can be found below. The majority of these projects were funded by the Ministry of the Environment, Climate Protection and the Energy Sector Baden-Württemberg with funds from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the initiative “Bioeconomy – Biorefineries for the production of raw materials from waste and wastewater – Bio-Ab-Cycling”.

These pilot plants are available for use at Fraunhofer IGB so that the technologies and processes developed can be put into practice and wastewater and waste can be used as a source of raw materials.