NEEDED - unlock the source of blackwater: from separated wastewater to value-added products
Environmental biotechnology provides unique opportunity to create new platforms for sustainable processes which is a global goal today and essential to achieve transition into a circular economy and that includes resource recovery, reuse and recycling.
Despite the promising developments, two main challenges left in this area are obtaining pure products and increasing production efficiency in both industrial and environmental biotechnology applications. Source separated municipal wastewater is a new approach for urban wastewater management to increase the recovery of the value-added components from high-strength part (blackwater).
The overarching aim of NEEDED is to establish a new biobased production platform by embracing microbial communities for achieving sustainable production of specific biobased chemicals from source separated municipal wastewater. The short-term objectives of the project are:
- to screen mixed microbiomes taken from both natural and engineered ecosystems,
- to select key species based on characteristics of the fermentation of blackwater and to co-cultivate the selected species in granular form for tailor made VFA production as caproic acid, butyric acid, propionic acid and acetic acid.
- bioaugmentation of synthetic granules into mixed microbiome taken from engineered bioreactor(s).
- design of novel cascade upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor.
This approach will break new grounds in both microbial biotechnology and process engineering and be a game changer to produce bio-based materials by opening new applications in biotechnology.
Project period
March 2023-March 2026
Financing
Åforsk
Total budget
1,890,000 SEK
Project coordinator
KTH Researchers
Participating universities
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology
- Uppsala University-SciLifeLab