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Project Topic
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Sustainable Development Goals proposed by UN, as well as the international agreement signed in Paris during COP21 are currently important drivers of the international research and development efforts in order to achieve the highest possible sustainability of the human activities. Project described in this proposal addresses these needs by research and development, aimed at obtaining a technical design of an installation for the staged recovery of an agricultural water from drying of high moisture fermentation products. Proposed technology will be modular and transportable, i.e. technical design will include containerization of all of the modules. Project proposes innovative, transdisciplinary approach, by enabling an access to the potential water resources, currently neglected, i.e. water evaporated during drying of high moisture solid fermentation products. Moreover, project is aiming to achieve high synergy by integrating the water recovery with improved heat balance of the drying process and additional utilization of the latent heat, that could be recovered during the water condensation. Furthermore, project proposes to apply the hydrothermal carbonization (HTC), thus bringing the potential for synergy, due to expected positive effects in terms of initial dehydration and sanitization. Purification of the water from two separately obtained streams will be achieved by the use of different types of membrane processes, selected in a way, that will optimize the use of the electricity by the installation as well as CAPEX and maintenance cost. The use of electricity will be further optimized by implementation of accumulation of pure water, allowing to minimize the cost of electricity by using it during off peak hours. This will make the proposed technology “smart grid ready”. An additional benefit of the proposed technology of water recovery from digestate will be the reuse of the resulting concentrate: it will be recycled to the wastewater processing as a technological liquid to the fermentation chamber, which will increase the hydration of the sludge. Due to the use of concentrate it will be a waste-free technology (zero liquid discharge technology). Finally, the proposed installation will allow to turn digestate into a valuable and marketable product. Project consortium consists of academics from different disciplines, technology developer and a key user, which guarantees maximization of practicality of the proposed solutions, which will be the key factor in the commercialization of the developed technology in the future. Academic team consists of experts in different areas, such as water treatment, thermal processes (drying, HTC, anaerobic digestion) and structural properties of the organic materials.
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