Profile: AgriChemWhey project – An integrated biorefinery to transform dairy side streams into biobased chemicals
Type of post: PROJECT PROFILE.
Last year, the Blog published a post about the
flagship projects of the BBI JU (“BBI JU flagship projects - The new
generation of European advanced biorefineries”, 17/7/2017). They are initiatives that support
the launch of an innovation that has been demonstrated but not yet deployed on
the market and include the establishment of a first-of-a-kind, large-scale
facility. To the date of writing that post, 5 flagship grant agreements between
the BBI JU and project consortia have been signed and it was supposed that a
sixth flagship was going to be stablished under 2016 call. At the beginning of
this year, the details of that agreement were disclosed, a new advanced biorefinery at commercial
scale will be built
in Ireland. This post shows a profile of the project.
The problem
addressed
The European dairy industry, as by-products of
whey protein manufacture, produces substances known as whey permeate (WP) and delactosed
whey permeate (DLP). These major side-streams of dairy processing lack
effective disposal routes and represent a sustainability bottleneck for the
expansion of milk production in Europe in the “post-milk-quota era”.
The solution
provided
The AgriChemWhey project proposes to convert
the aforementioned sidestreams into added-value products for growing global
markets: l-Lactic acid, polylactic acid, minerals for human nutrition and
biobased fertiliser. In order to do that, a first-of-a-kind, industrial-scale
biorefinery, that will valorise over 25 ktons (100% dry matter) per annum of
excess WP and DLP, will be constructed.
The Flagship plant will prove the
techno-economic viability of the innovative WP/DLP-to-lactic acid biorefinery
process. The technology will be optimised by reducing production times and
increasing yields. Also, the new biorefinery will establish a new value chain
for industrial symbiosis with other local actors for the production of high value
sustainable food and feed products from other side streams. In this way, society
and industry benefit from for greater resource efficiency: less food waste,
more products from the same starting material (milk) and integration of food
and non-food material production.
AgriChemWhey will develop a blueprint of an
economic sustainability concept and replication plans for other regions across
Europe, contributing towards the blossom of the European bioeconomy to promote
rural growth, competitiveness and job creation. Exploitation strategies that
will ensure the wider uptake of the biorefinery technology.
Figure 1. Glanbia Ingredients milk tanker. This
Irish company is the leader of the project.
Key data
Main
objective
|
The main
objective of AgriChemWhey is to develop the world’s first integrated
biorefinery for converting food-processing residues to bio-based chemicals. The
plant will be stablished in Ireland. The project will see a new value chain
for lactic acid from dairy production residues.
|
Call and
topic
|
- H2020-BBI-JTI-2016.
- BBI-2016-F01
- Valorisation of by-products or waste-streams from the food processing
industry into high added-value products for market applications.
- Type of action: Innovation Action –
Flagship.
- Value Chain: VC4 – organic waste.
|
Duration
|
From
01/01/2018 to 31/12/2021.
|
Total
cost
|
29,949,323
€
|
BBI JU
contribution
|
22,007,931
€
|
Project
leader
|
Glanbia Ingredients (Ireland)
|
Consortium
|
University College Dublin (Ireland)
Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)
Commercial Mushroom Producers Co-operative
Society Ltd (Ireland)
PNO Consultants Ltd (UK)
GIG Karasek GmbH (Austria)
Tipperary County Council (Ireland)
Teagasc - The Agriculture and Food
Development Authority (Ireland)
Greenwin Wallonie (Belgium)
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)
EW Biotech GmbH (Germany)
|
Expected impacts
The AgriChemWhey project aims for the following
impacts:
- Developing rural communities by creating
local jobs. Replicating AgriChemWhey biorefineries has the potential to create
over 1,000 rural jobs within four years of project completion.
- Securing the future for dairy farming by
making milk production more sustainable and increase the amount that farmers
can earn from their outputs.
- Improving the EU trade balance through
greater resource efficiency and by reducing current EU l-lactic acid imports
(currently 80,000 tons per annum).
- Providing inspiration and encouraging society
and industry to embrace the growth and competitiveness of a European circular
bioeconomy.
- Saving between 18,000 and 89,000 tons of CO2eq/year,
depending on the number of AgriChemWhey-style biorefineries.
