BioRefineries Blog

Type of post: NEWS IN BRIEF. The EU Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, Miguel Arias Cañete, opened the new phase of the All-gas project at the wastewater treatment plant of Chiclana (Cádiz, Spain) last Friday. The project is aimed at the biogas production from the cultivation of microalgae in waste water (reclaimed). All-gas (Industrial scale demonstration of sustainable algae cultures for biofuel production) is co-funded by the European Union through 7 th Framework Programme (Call: ENERGY.2010.3.4-1 - Biofuels from algae, topic: FP7-ENERGY-2010-2). Figure 1. Opening of the All-gas project´s new demo phase (extracted from the press release) The previous activities of the pilot and prototype phases have been completed successfully and have enabled the production of biogas, which is being tested in different vehicles to check its performance. Now, the project enters its demonstration stage after the completion of the works carried out inside the local authorit...

Waste water treatment processes are called upon to converge with biorefining technologies. In some cases, those processes will be incorporated in a particular biorefinery model to treat their effluent efficiently and economically, minimise their net water consumption and obtain high valuable by-products. In other cases, waste water treatment facilities will be converted into real biorefineries. Billund BioRefinery , that is often called the Waste Water Treatment Plant of the Future, is an example of this second situation. It is a joint project between Krüger A/S (Veolia Water Technologies subsidiary), the municipality of Billund and its utility company Billund Vand A/S. The plant has been designed to be a model of complementary waste water and biomass treatment technologies working in synergy. It will convert waste water sludge and organic waste into biogas for local consumption, organic soil improvers for agriculture and bioplastics. The dual feed plant will treat 4,200 tons o...