23 02 2021

On the way to a green waste-biorefinery

A large amount of green waste is generated especially in metropolitan regions and it is not sustainably recycled until now. The majority of green waste is composted and subsequently used as fertilizer or is used in biogas plants for energy production. As part of the project “GreenToGreen – municipal green waste as the basis for green chemistry” new processes are being developed for the material use of green waste.

Through the production of basic and fine chemicals as well as electrode materials from green waste, a higher added value is to be achieved, while resulting products are to be used in the sense of green chemistry. Therefore, a network from green space planning, to municipal waste disposal companies and the chemical industry is created for the effective use of the municipal material flow. In addition to the funded project partners, the University of Applied Sciences Mittelhessen, the University of Kaiserslautern, and FTZ GmbH, local partners from Frankfurt are involved in the project. The GreenToGreen project is part of the BioBall innovation space. BioBall aims to promote the material use of biogenic residual and waste materials in metropolitan regions, such as the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main region (more information: https://biooekonomie-metropolregion.de/bioball/en/home_en.html).

In a recent review, the project partners summarized in detail the potential material recycling methods for green waste (Langsdorf et al. Bioresour. Bioprocess. (2021) 8:19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40643-021-00367-5). For an economical as well as an ecological implementation of these methods, it is essential to process the green waste as locally as possible. Furthermore, the recycling routes described will only be able to prevail over the conventional methods through an all-encompassing cascade process in the form of a green waste-biorefinery.

For further information please contact the coordinator of the project (dirk.holtmann@lse.thm.de).

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