This European Project aims to develop improved bio refinery processes to extract significant amounts of valuable compounds contained in waste such as tomato, potato, olive and cereal waste that are not currently valorised by combining affordable & flexible processing technologies in the agriculture and food processing industry.
The project will deliver two pilot plants (Spain and Italy) to demonstrate the technical feasibility of different valorisation technologies for treating the acute agri-food waste surplus. It will also demonstrate of the use of the resulting bio-compounds in food, packaging and agricultural products.
The project will contribute positively to the competitiveness of the agricultural and food sectors and also to rural development and employment.
The consortium counts on the expertise of 29 partners from 10 European countries: 11 of them from academia and technology institutes and 18 industry participants (12 SMEs and 6 large enterprises).
Exergy will be responsible for the initial design of the two pilot plants that will be installed in Spain and Italy. Exergy will design and engineer the thermal treatments and solvent extraction in both pilot plants as well as the setup and commission the plant in Italy. Exergy will be also in charge of the techno-economic evaluation of the technologies and the virtual scale-up to a larger scale for a further assessment.
‘’The project will bring an undoubtable opportunity to the different consortium partners, especially to SMEs such as Exergy, which will experiment a vast growth. AgriMax will valorise different agricultural residues into high-value products creating a large number of new value chains. The project is close to a commercial scale and will enable a fast implementation across Europe as a new concept of flexible biorefinery. The role acquired by engineering and consultancy companies like Exergy will be essential for the further implementation of the technologies by large biorefineries.’’ – Says Rocio Roldan – Chemical Engineer at ExergyLtd