Result description
Water scarcity and resources recovery are global concerns. Sustainable solutions are needed to use water in the best possible way and to recover resources from going to waste. Slaughtering is a water-intensive industry, and the wastewater it generates contains a high proportion of organic matter, being a valuable source of nutrients if properly recovered.
Addressing water scarcity while simultaneously recovering valuable resources is what Water2REturn sets out to achieve; it proposes an integrated solution for treating slaughterhouse wastewater and recovering nutrients with high market value in the agricultural sector. Industrial symbiosis is at the core of Water2REturn, in which wastewater treatment facilities in slaughterhouses are turned into bio-refineries under a Circular Economy approach.
Water2REturn is a modular system customisable for future clients according to their needs, and its flexibility to be adapted to other food industries confers it a high replicability potential.
An integrated treatment and nutrients + energy recovery system is being installed at an active slaughterhouse called “Matadero del Sur”, in Salteras, near Seville (Spain). This demonstrator has a treatment capacity of 50 m3 per day (out of the 150 m3 of the slaughterhouse wastewater daily flow), and it consists of three separate process units (water line, sludge line, algae line) + an energy recovery module. Future end users may decide if they would like to install the three lines or just some of them, with or without the energy recovery module, according to their needs and expectations. The project demonstrator aims to show all different possibilities and potentialities of the treatment system under a Circular Economy approach, but Water2REturn system is highly adaptable and customisable.
Addressing target audiences and expressing needs
- Business partners – SMEs, Entrepreneurs, Large Corporations
- Marketing Mentoring or Coaching
- Business plan development
Water2Return provides a new business model based on circular economy approaches and industrial symbiosis schemes, what constitute new business opportunities for all different involved sectors. The immediate potential users, the early adopters, would be those from the slaughtering industry, followed by stakeholders from the meat processing industry. The agricultural sector would be also benefited, being potential end users both bio-agronomic products’ distributors and conventional and organic farmers.
- Public or private funding institutions
- EU and Member State Policy-makers
- Other Actors who can help us fulfil our market potential
R&D, Technology and Innovation aspects
Water2REturn demonstrator (50 m3 /day capacity treatment) has been successfully installed at “Matadero del Sur” slaughterhouse (Salteras, near Seville, Spain), and it is currently being started up. It is expected to run the demostration phase for at least 8 months to obtain sound results for the evalution of its performance.
Result submitted to Horizon Results Platform by ADVENTECH – ADVANCED ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES LDA
