CIRULAR BIOCARBON – TURNING URBAN WASTE STREAMS INTO VALUE-ADDED PRODUCTS

June 2021 - May 2026​

​CIRCULAR BIOCARBON is a first-of-its-kind flagship biorefinery designed to turn the organic fraction of municipal solid waste and sewage sludge into high added-value end products. CIRCULAR BIOCARBON will mitigate the environmental impacts generated by urban waste streams by reducing landfilling, incineration and greenhouse gas emissions.

​The main objective of the CIRCULAR BIOCARBON project is to open up new business frameworks, based on a new circular vision of the urban solid waste and sludge treatment towards a sustainable bioeconomy, and to optimise the management of both the organic fraction of solid urban waste and sewage sludge, making the most of all the carbon generated in a population centre. Some of the products that will be obtained are tailor-made bio-based fertilisers, diamond-like carbon coatings, graphene, and bioplastics, as well as a variety of intermediate products such as proteins, struvite, ammonium salts and algal bio-stimulants.

A step in the direction of the sustainable bio-economy

The CIRCULAR BIOCARBON biorefinery, organised through a pool of cascading technologies, start from anaerobic process steps (after proper pretreatment) of mixed urban waste streams, of which organic fraction of municipal solid waste is the main one, in order to treat all the biowaste produced by a medium-size city. At the end of the project, a commercial scale biorefinery will be fully operative at Urbaser's Alfonso Maíllo Waste Treatment Technological Innovation Center in Zaragoza, Spain. To maximise replicability and boost the impacts on the market and on society, the biorefinery will be operated on an industrial-commercial scale, and actors leading the territorial waste management schemes and policies will be engaged.

In the project CemeCon will be responsible for demonstrating the value of and utilize the urban waste produced. We will replace materials based on fossil fuels in our production and valorise the produced building blocks to produce coatings so that we can provide our customers with coatings with an even lower carbon footprint than today. The project is in line with the company’s commitment to quest for solutions that promote circular economy and contribute to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, which seeks to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

The CIRCULAR BIOCARBON project will have a duration of five years and an overall budget of €23 million, €15 million of which will be funded by the European Commission in the form of a subsidy.

Urbaser, a global environmental management company, will lead the project. The project consortium is made up of 11 partners from 5 European countries:

  • URBASER SA, Spain
  • SOCAMEX SA, Spain
  • CAP HOLDING SPA, Italy
  • CEMECON SCANDINAVIA A/S, Denmark
  • GRAPHENEA SEMICONDUCTOR SL, Spain
  • NOVAMONT SPA, Italy
  • AGRO INNOVATION INTERNATIONAL (ROULLIER), France
  • ICLEI EUROPEAN SECRETARIAT GMBH (ICLEI EUROPASEKRETARIAT GMBH), Germany
  • FUNDACIO UNIVERSITARIA BALMES (UVIC-BETA), Spain
  • UNIVERSIDAD DE VALLADOLID, Spain
  • UNIVERSITA POLITECNICA DELLE MARCHE, Italy

The project will not only benefit the five counties involved but the whole of Europe due to its capacity for replication.

More information: www.circularbiocarbon.eu

This project has received funding from the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement no. 101023280

​The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon2020 research and innovation programme and the Bio Based Industries Consortium.

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CemeCon Scandinavia A/S

Navervej 28, ​DK-8382 Hinnerup
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VAT: DK-32293395

Contact

Telephone: +45 70 22 11 61

​Email: info@cemecon.dk

Closing days 2024:

23/12-2024-1/01-2025

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