The project
Resource recovery
from novel assisted
metabolism
Exploiting cellulosic sewage and
bacterial metabolism to produce
novel bio-based compounds
REFRAME envisions a new horizon: transforming wastewater treatment plants into biorefineries to extract and refine cellulose from flushed toilet paper, which can then be used in various fields such as chemistry, biodegradable materials, and animal feed.
On average, every EU citizen disposes of about 6.6 kg of cellulose per year (equivalent to approximately 100 rolls of toilet paper), which cannot be recycled as it ends up in sewage and wastewater.
Thanks to the support of the Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions program, this project has the target to turn the discharged toilet paper into a valuable biological resource by converting the cellulose material into innovative bio-products.
Impacts
- to increase the bio-based shares of platform chemicals up to 1.7 times by the valorisation of cellulosic fibers from toilet paper;
- to increase the bio-based share of polymer for plastics up to 1.4 times by the production of polyhydroxyalkanoates;
- to raise awareness among prospective stakeholders about innovative environmental technologies and
bio-based products.
The project will advance the state of the art of the field by investigating of a new type of bioprocess and bacterial metabolisms to fill the current lack of the long-term stability, quality and purity of isolated bio-based compounds (VFAs and PHAs) produced from cellulosic primary sludge (CPS) as raw materials.
The VFAs produced from CPS could potentially increase the annual production of bio-based acetic acid from 55 to 189 kton/y, so that the EU bio-based shares will would be 3.5 higher compared with the current production.
Considering the same share EU bio-based share found for the platform of chemicals, the valorisation of the CPS could completely cover the growing rate demand or partially replace the annual production of propionic and butyric acid from fossil to bio-based origin up to 70 and 14 kton.
Impact of the bio-based VFAs and PHAs production from CPS on the current production of EU bio-based platform of chemicals
| Product category *considering 0.3% as current EU bio-based share |
Average Price (€/ton) |
EU production (kton/y) |
Current EU bio-based production (kton/y) | Total bio-based production with REFRAME (kton/y) |
| Platform chemicals (EC-JRC, 2018) |
1480 | 60791 | 181 | 315 |
| Acetic acid | 600 | 18500 | 55* | 189 |
| Propionic acid | 2250 | 470 | 1.4* | 70 |
| Butyric acid | 1575 | 105 | 0.3* | 14 |
| Polymer for plastics | 2680 | 60000 | 268 | 372 |
| PHA | 5430 | 2.3 | 2.3 | 104 |