Horizon Europe Manure Refinery Project: Smart modular mobile manure biorefining to achieve zero waste, maximizing resource and nutrient recovery for feed and fertilizer bio-ingredients in rural areas

Livestock farming is a crucial pillar of the European rural economy. However, it also generates pollution with a significant impact on air quality and climate change. Europe produces more than 1.4 billion tons of manure annually, of which cattle contribute 75% and pigs and chickens 12% each. Livestock farming is by far the main European subsector responsible for NH3 (~1.5 Mt/year) and CH4 (~166 Mt/year) emissions.

Despite numerous efforts in recent decades, the current management and disposal of manure on agricultural land as fertilizer continues to pose significant pollution problems, such as soil degradation, eutrophication of surface waters, and groundwater contamination. In this regard, new opportunities are emerging for small-scale biorefineries, which have the potential to offer diversification opportunities for rural stakeholders.

In this context, ManuREfinery aims to implement a smart, modular, mobile, and sustainable small-scale decentralized biorefinery that will convert livestock manure into value-added bio-based feed (microbial protein, caproic acid, protein-enriched grass cake) and bio-ingredients (sodium nitrate, ammonium bicarbonate, phosphorus-rich fly ash) for fertilizers. The Manurefinery solution exhibits high scalability/replicability potential by integrating:

1. Advanced modular and mobile thermochemical and biochemical feedstock conversion units.
2. Digital twin and data science for multi-criteria decision-making and process optimization, scalability, and replicability.
3. Sustainability (economic, social, environmental) and circularity assessment framework.
4. Strategies to boost stakeholder engagement in the livestock sector and improve social acceptance of the solution.
5. New, sustainable and replicable business models for income diversification in the livestock sector. ManuREfinery will be demonstrated in Q3 6-7 on two pig farms (Romania and Spain), one cow farm (Slovenia), and one poultry farm (Romania), thus fostering the transition of Central and Eastern European regions toward a sustainable bioeconomy.