AgriMax project – Harnessing the wastes of the European agro-food industry
The AgriMax project, one of the new
demonstration actions of the BBI JU,
started running at the beginning of last month with a kick-off meeting in the
facilities of the coordinator with the presence of the whole consortium and the
BBI Project Officer, Ana Ruiz. The fund was granted under the topic “Valorisation
of agricultural residues and side streams from the agro-food industry” (BBI.VC3.D5-2015)
of the 2015 call and it will try to contribute to the competitiveness of the
agricultural and food sectors through the cascade valorisation of a large
amount of the content of selected agri-food wastes in high added value
applications.
As I mentioned in previous posts about projects
with similar approaches, the BBI JU supports the transformation of wastes into bioproducts
through biorefineries in order to release the European bioeconomy potential. EU
generates annually large quantities of agricultural waste and it is important to
build new value chains and interconnections between sectors to walk towards a resource-efficient
Europe. In this sense, AgriMax will deliver 2 pilot plants (Spain and Italy) to
demonstrate the technical feasibility of different valorisation technologies
for processing the agri-food waste surplus. They will be essential for the
further implementation of the technologies by large biorefineries. The project
will also demonstrate the use of the resulting biocompounds in food, packaging
and agricultural products, studying the suitable business models for the new
value chains.
Figure 1. AgriMax project concept
The consortium combines the expertise of 29
partners from 10 European countries: 11 of them from academia and technology
institutes and 18 industry participants (12 SMEs and 6 large enterprises). A
Spanish SME leads this large consortium. It is IRIS, an advanced engineering company
that specializes in process monitoring and control solutions and novel
technologies for process optimisation.
Below, a summary of the key information and a
short interview with the project coordinator complete this post about AgriMax.
Key information
Title
|
Agri and
food waste valorisation co-ops based on flexible multi-feedstocks biorefinery
processing technologies for new high added value applications
|
General
objective
|
AgriMax will combine flexible processing
technologies to valorise residues and by-products from the agriculture and
food processing industry to extract valuable biocompounds used to produce
active ingredients, packaging and agricultural materials, among others.
|
Budget
|
Total
cost: 15.54 M€.
BBI JU
contribution: 12.49 M€.
|
Duration
|
October 1st 2016 – September 30th 2020.
|
Partnership
|
- Innovacio i Recerca Industrial i Sostenible SL (Spain)
- Asociación de Investigación de Materiales Plásticos y
Conexas (Spain)
- Universiteit Gent (Belgium)
- Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per la Scienza e
Tecnologia dei Materiali (Italy)
- Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentaries (Spain)
- Nofima AS (Norway)
- Instituto Tecnológico del Embalaje, Transporte y
Logística (Spain)
- Alma Mater Studiorum - Universita di Bologna (Italy)
- Fraunhofer
(Germany)
- Stazione
Sperimentale per L'industria delle Conserve Alimentari (Italy)
- University
College Dublin (Ireland)
- Universidad
de Almería (Spain)
- Biovale
Limited (United Kingdom)
- Federació de Cooperatives Agràries de Catalunya (Spain)
- Fachverband
der Nahrungs und Genussmittelindustrie (Austria)
- Gospodarsko
Interesno Zdruzenje Grozd Plasttehnika - Giz Grozd PlasttehnikA (Slovenia)
- Azienda Agricola Chiesa Virginio (Italy)
- Exergy
LTD (United Kingdom)
- Laboratori
Archa SRL (Italy)
- Femto
Engineering SRL (Italy)
- Laser
Consult Muszaki-Tudomanyos es Gazdasagi Tanacsado Korlatolt Felelossegu
Tarsasag (Hungary)
- Mycoplast
di Federico Maria Grati e Stefano Babbini S.N.C. (Italy)
- Organic
Waste Systems NV (Belgium)
- Bioprocess
Pilot Facility BV (Netherlands)
- Fertinagro
Nutrientes, S.L. (Spain)
- Gaviplas,
S.L. (Spain)
- Barilla G. E R. Fratelli SPA (Italy)
- Indulleida
S.A. (Spain)
- Ardagh
Group Italy SRL (Italy)
|
Interview with Gianluca
Belotti from IRIS (AgriMax project coordinator)
1. [BioRefineries Blog] AgriMax is focused on
the valorization of agricultural waste and sidestreams of the food processing
industry through biorefining processes. What are the specific feedstocks to be
studied during the project?
[Gianluca Belotti] AgriMax will develop a
flexible and integrated biorefinery approach to convert into valuable products
the wastes generated during the production and processing of tomatoes,
potatoes, olives and cereals.
2. [BRB] This is mainly a demo project. In
fact, it will deliver two pilot plants to demonstrate innovating processing
technologies. Could you briefly explain what these technologies are and the way
to combine them in the pilot plants?
[GB] Different treatment will be used among
which: thermal, enzymatic, extraction, ultrasound, sedimentation, filtration
and centrifugation. The techniques will be combined in a cascading approach to
pretreat, fractionate, convert and upgrade the raw materials and then to
recover the target compounds.
3. [BRB] What are the expected bioproducts to
be developed and their impacts?
[GB] We're going to deliver several products: food
ingredients, materials for agriculture, bioFertilizers, biopackaging and chemicals.
The application sectors will be:
- Safe and environmentally friendly
Bio-Packaging (bioplastic flexible and rigid packaging, active and barrier
packaging, biobased coatings for metal packaging, biocomposites, as well as
secondary packaging).
- Healthier and functional Food products
(additives, ingredients, coatings, microorganisms used in production, enhanced
food products).
- Bio-based Agriculture products (bioplastics
embedding fertilisers based solutions for biodegradable mulching films and pots
as well as biofertilisers with biostimulant and biocontrol properties).
4. [BRB] Could you add some detail about the
monitoring system to follow the biorefinery process that IRIS will develop?
[GB] IRIS will develop a NIR based optical
system, optionally combined with other techniques, to provide an affordable,
quick and powerful solution to optimise the processing of each selected
feedstock. This solution will allow the online monitoring of critical parameters
of the biocompounds such as protein, polyphenols contents colour and others.
5. [BRB] Regarding to organization aspects, the
consortium is comprised by a large number of members. How it will be managed?
What is the role of IRIS?
[GB] The first role of IRIS, as coordinator, is to
ensure the smooth execution of the project, supervising and guiding the
technical operations, disseminating and communicating the project results, and
being the interface with the EC.
Acknowledgements: I would like to express my appreciation to Carlota Feliu (Marketing Manager at IRIS) and Gianluca Belotti (PMO Officer at IRIS) for their kind collaboration.