"We convert organic food waste into compounds for biodegradable bioplastics"
Food waste valorisation: towards biodegradable bioplastics
AHOBAE, a project in which TECNALIA is involved, proposes a technological solution to valorise organic by-products and transform them into short-chain fatty acids, through directed anaerobic fermentation processes. The compounds obtained can be used as raw material for the production of biodegradable bioplastics, such as PHB.
"The use of real-time sensors and artificial intelligence tools will enable us to optimise the process and achieve a 45% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a 40% reduction in water consumption", explains Thomas Dietrich, a Healthy Food researcher at TECNALIA.
One of AHOBAE's objectives is to valorise food waste unfit for human consumption and convert it into high added value products, such as biodegradable bioplastics.
- Food waste is one of the major global environmental, economic and social challenges. It is estimated that around one third of the food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted along the value chain, leading to significant environmental impact, greenhouse gas emissions and the inefficient use of natural resources, such as water and energy.
- In the Basque Country, this challenge directly affects key sectors, such as distribution, catering and the agri-food industry, where surpluses and by-products do not always find efficient ways to be used.
Laying the groundwork for the next steps
Over this time, AHOBAE has achieved major milestones, such as the definition of the management routes for organic by-products, the specification of the protocols for their valorisation and the determination of the target characteristics of the PHB to be produced, laying the groundwork for the following phases of validation and industrial scaling.
The results obtained are expected to represent a significant advance over traditional models, such as composting or conventional anaerobic digestion by generating closed value chains, reducing the carbon footprint and increasing industrial competitiveness.
The project is aligned with the Basque Country’s RIS3 in bioeconomy and the Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG 12 on responsible production and consumption, helping to position Basque industry as a reference in advanced solutions for waste recovery.
AHOBAE is a HAZITEK project (funded by SPRI), led by Agaleus and involving Eroski, as a generator of by-products in the field of distribution and facilitator of the scalability of the results; Saizarlan, responsible for converting the intermediates obtained into high added value bioplastics; The Whiteteam Consulting (TWT), which optimises processes through artificial intelligence and data science; and Zermik, engineering, specialising in advanced sensorics and process monitoring. Furthermore, TECNALIA participates as an actor of the Basque Science, Technology and Innovation Network (RVCTI), and Leyton supports the management of the project.