H2020 BIOrescue Project: Enhanced Bioconversion of Agricultural Waste through Cascade Use
- Type Project
- Status Filled
- Execution 2016 -2019
- Assigned Budget 2.635.140,63 €
- Scope Europeo
- Main source of financing H2020
- Project website BIORESCUE
Mushrooms are big business: more than one million tons are grown in the EU each year. These crops produce a healthy food, low in fat and high in protein, as well as rich in minerals and vitamins. The downside is that producing each ton requires around 3 million tons of mushroom compost. This mixture of chicken manure, peat, and wheat straw is only suitable for one to three harvests. Disposing of it poses significant economic and logistical challenges for European farmers. The mushroom industry currently lacks adapted technological solutions to transform this used compost into valuable products.
The EU-funded BIOrescue project demonstrated a sustainable biorefinery process to transform the vast majority of used mushroom compost (as well as other underutilized agricultural waste) into valuable bioactive compounds and bioproducts.
The industrial leader of the consortium has been one of the main mushroom producers: Monaghan Mushrooms. The innovative system relies on modern mathematical modeling tools that rapidly analyze the composition of biomass waste. With great precision, the innovative methodology models the composition of previously determined samples by measuring their near-infrared spectra. "Rapid biomass analysis is key to the success of a biorefinery process. The new advanced algorithms developed by CELIGNIS could reduce the cost of sample analysis to less than €100 per sample per day," says Inés del Campo, BIOrescue project coordinator at the Spanish National Renewable Energy Centre (CENER).
The project partners also developed two parallel processes to optimize biomass pretreatment. The first, called organosolv pretreatment, is used to obtain the maximum amount of lignin, while sugars are recovered through a thermochemical pretreatment process. Furthermore, the biotechnology company METGEN created proprietary, customized enzyme solutions that efficiently break down the long chains of sugars and lignin polymers in biomass compost into smaller fragments: this process makes them easier to extract compared to using commercial enzymes for the same purpose. “Used mushroom compost works wonders. We developed inexpensive, highly concentrated biopesticides that are less toxic, yet just as effective as their commercially available fossil-based counterparts. Furthermore, the Max Planck Institute for Polymers has transformed lignin into tiny biodegradable capsules that can be used for the controlled, time-release of drugs and even as a potential new plant vaccine targeting specific diseases,” adds del Campo.
The BIOrescue project seeks to develop and demonstrate a new and innovative biorefinery concept based on the cascade use of spent mushroom substrate (SMS) supplemented with wheat straw (and other seasonally underutilized lignocellulosic feedstocks, such as pruning residues, citrus peels, and waste). This new concept will avoid disposal and enable the production of biodegradable bioproducts and bioactive compounds that will help replace current fossil-based products.
The research will contribute to expanding business opportunities for mushroom farms, as well as the knowledge and business opportunities of all participating partners. The main innovations are:
- Improved methods for rapid (NIR) analysis in biomass laboratories
- Innovative two-step SMS splitting
- Synergistic effects for complete hydrolysis of SMS glucan
- Innovative enzyme immobilization strategy
- Development of highly efficient glucan enzymes
- New lignin-based nano- and microcarriers
- Production of biopesticides from monomeric sugars derived from SMS and their packaging in nanocarriers
The consortium involved is a representation of some BIC members, including a large company (Monaghan Mushrooms) leading the proposal and some SMEs (MetGen Oy and CLEA Technologies) and BIC associate members (University of Naples and CENER). In addition, other relevant partners with recognized expertise in their respective areas contribute to the objectives. These include several research organizations (Imperial College of London and Max Planck Institute of Polymers) and innovative SMEs (Celignis Limited, Zabala Innovation Consulting, Greenovate Europe, and C-TECH Innovation Ltd). The synergies between large industry and SMEs go beyond the scope of this project. There is great potential for collaboration between the agricultural industry (Monaghan) and biotechnology (MetGen and CLEA) to provide innovative solutions for a continuous circular economy in large agricultural value chains.
From biomass analysis to conversion, innovation drives every step of the biorefinery process. By generating low-carbon bioproducts that can be used in agriculture, BIOrescue closes the loop toward a truly circular agri-food industry. Project partners conducted preliminary analyses to evaluate potential combinations of mushroom compost with other underutilized agricultural feedstocks. They found that wheat straw, oat straw, and barley straw combined most efficiently with the used mushroom compost.
Finally, they evaluated the year-round availability of these raw materials in different regions, a crucial element for the development of local biorefinery processes. "At BIOrescue, we seek to create a circular economy in the mushroom industry, but we also saw the numerous opportunities it offers," del Campo notes. "In that sense, our biorefinery concept will be replicable with other types of agricultural waste and, therefore, relevant to other industries that generate large amounts of biomass waste."
- FUNDACION CENER (CENTRO NACIONAL DE ENERGIAS RENOVABLES CENER)
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