The CIRCLE project is highly ambitious in its objectives, and it will showcase the first-of-its-kind industrial scale ‘multi-purpose’ biorefinery producing biogas while converting food waste into bio-based lactic acid (LA). The core technology has been developed by TripleW, which proposes an unprecedented breakthrough solution to address the main challenges associated (i) to food waste management, (ii) to the use of first-generation food crops for producing chemicals, and (iii) to LA production costs and challenges presented by plastic pollution.
This first-of-its-kind industrial retrofitted biorefinery in Europe producing pure lactic acid and lactate salts and demonstrating its applicability in different sectors including conversion into PLA, that in turn will be uptaken into a variety of end products.
The project coordinator, TripleW has already performed a complete conceptual design study with the support of the Belgian engineering company DSEC (De Smet Engineers and Contractors) for retrofitting the AD plant of Orgaworld, complying with the good-practice engineering principles.
The CIRCLE Flagship plant will be designed to efficiently produce high-quality raw LA, lactate salts (LS) and industrial and polymer grade LA, in a safe and reliable manner.
The demonstration of the CIRCLE flagship project will act as a lighthouse investment to be replicated in collaboration with other municipalities and waste management operators throughout the EU.
