Work Package 1 - Development of innovative bioreactors

Lead Partner: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Objectives:

• Analysis of innovative unit processes, which will serve for the identification and growth of microbial consortia that could be potentially grown in biofilm-based and granular bioreactors to optimize and expand the range of application of current wastewater and biogas treatment technologies as well as to design novel bioreactors for challenging applications.
• Design and testing of innovative bioreactors and configurations for enzymatic CO₂ conversions (immobilized enzymes in bioreactors for formic acid production), ammonia absorption in a bioscrubber coupled to partial nitrification, using both granular sludge and biofilm grown on a moving bed support material (MBBR), and autotrophic denitrification via nitrite for biogas desulfurization in a moving (rotatory) bed biofilm reactor (MrBBR).
• Innovative carriers to improve mass transfer and biological processes coupling by assessing the potential of innovative solutions to increase gas – liquid and bulk liquid – biofilm mass transfer and granular biomass formation.
• Development of online instrumentation such as microfluidic, portable devices for nitrate, nitrite, sulphate and sulphide to obtain data to assess processes performance and mass transport. Moreover, to develop automated control strategies to improve bioreactors robustness and stability.

Work Package 2 - Application of monitoring and molecular biology tools

Lead Partner: Università di Pisa

Objectives:

• Determination of the activity of microorganisms in respirometers and enzymes in microcosms to assess their performance, under a range of environmental conditions, and to determine biomass growth, degradation rates and mass transport.
• Biome monitoring by next generation sequencing (NGS) applied to metabarcoding of bacterial and protist communities for its application to describe the spatial-temporal patterns of diversity of the microbial communities forming the granules and biofilms in the bioreactors.
• Monitoring of batteries of enzymes involved in the process of degradation/transformation of the contaminants by molecular approaches (clone libraries, q-PCR, NGS) to envisage the spatial-temporal patterns of distribution of functional key barcodes during the different processes.
• Study of the potential role of phenomena including metabolites and enzymes production in innovative bioreactors.

Work Package 3 – Development of a Decision Support Tool (DST) based on multiple input data

Lead Partner: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Objectives:

• Development of a multicriteria database by collecting reliable data, both from literature and real applications, of characteristics of liquid and gaseous waste streams, energy consumption and economic data of the processes to be studied, such as biogas collected in landfills or the one produced in anaerobic digesters for sewage sludge (SS) treatment in WWTPs or the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW), the off-gases from composting of SS and OFMSW, reject water and mainstreams in WWTPs, leachate from MSW treatment facilities and mainstream at tannery WWTPs.
• Specific modelling of biological activity and mass transfer, as a function of operating conditions and variability in innovative bioreactors, also including the estimation of main greenhouse gases for carbon footprint estimation.
• Development of the architecture of the DST to integrate the database information to simulate combinations of innovative bioreactors for different scenarios and finally obtain quantitative analysis of the most suitable integration of bioprocesses for biogas upgrading and wastewater treatment to simultaneously remove carbon, nitrogen and reduced sulphur compounds considering resource recovery.

Work Package 4 – Analysis of treatment trains

Lead Partner: Aeris Tecnologías Ambientales S.L.

Objectives:

• Design of novel treatment trains for waste treatment facilities for gas and wastewater treatment, including resource recovery and considering when possible the interaction of sulphur reduced compounds and nitrogen removal, in views of their potential application to practical problems found by companies in the market.
• Application of the DST for the holistic analysis of treatment trains previously proposed in this Work Package. Estimation of effluents characteristics, carbon footprint and cost – benefit analysis to rank the different treatment trains alternatives per each-case study assessed.

Work Package 5 – RECYCLES demonstration

Lead Partner: Università degli Studi di Firenze

Objectives:

• Implementation of innovative bioreactors in a treatment train for real biogas upgrading. Installation of anaerobic digestion, scrubbing and bioscrubbing pilot plants in a tannery WWTP in the Tuscany region (Italy) and final CO₂ absorption in a MBfR with immobilized enzymes to recover formate and obtain the final biomethane.
• Application and performance analysis of the treatment train in a real facility at pilot-scale. Operation of the experimental treatment trains for biogas upgrading to ensure that reliable data of operation is obtained to validate the integration of innovative bioreactors. Analysis and comparison of the experimental results with those predicted by the DST in terms of effluent characteristics, carbon footprint and cost – benefit.

Work Package 6 – Training of ESR, dissemination, communication, experiment design, workshops and exploitation

Lead Partner: Università degli Studi di Firenze

Objectives:

• Dissemination of the scientific results addressed to a multiple audience and with different messages, content and instruments.
• Improvement of the transfer of knowledge within participants and training of early stage researchers by means of periodical workshops.
• Evaluation of the potential market penetration of the innovative solutions investigated in the market of selected countries of Europe, America and Asia, combined with a potential marketing plan, to estimate possible revenues from the exploitation of the innovative reactors, treatment trains and control systems developed within time frame from 5 to 10 years.

Work Package 7 – Management

Lead Partner: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Objectives:

• Organization and management of the secondments, dissemination, transference of knowledge and experimental activities.
• Administrative support and assurance of an effective communication among partners and with the Project Officer and the EC.
• Setting up a Research Data Management Plan (RDMP) to make all research data and publications available, regarding a balance between openness and protection of scientific information, commercialization and IPR, privacy, security and preservation questions.

Work Package 8 – Ethics requirements

Lead Partner: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Objectives:

• To set out the ethics requirements that the project must comply with.