We are happy to announce that PlasCarb will be presented at the 28th European Conference on Operational Research event in Poznan, Poland, on the 3rd and 6th July, 2016.

Our project partner, Florian Gehring, from The Institute for Building Physics (IBP) (one of the Fraunhofer (FhG) Institutes), will present the PlasCarb project, focussing on "From food waste to graphitic carbon – a sustainable development?". The presentation will take place in building WE, 1st floor, Room 107, on Monday, 4th July 2016 from 08:30 to 10:00.

EURO 2016 is the premier European conference for Operational Research and Management Science (OR/MS) organized by EURO – the European Association of Operational Research Society and the Polish OR Society at Poznan University of Technology. For the first time in the 40-year history of the EURO-k series, the conference will be held in Poland.

From food waste to graphitic carbon – a sustainable development?

Invited abstract in session MA-39: Biomass-Based Supply Chains, stream Biomass-Based Supply Chains.

Area: Energy, Environment, Natural Resources and Climate

Authors (first author is the speaker)

Abstract:

The project PlasCarb (PC) aims to transform food waste into a sustainable significant economic added value product, i.e., high-value graphitic carbon (C) and renewable hydrogen (RH2) – thus integrating business with research. This will combine improving resource efficiency and lowering the dependence on imports of fossil resources with sustainability management. The technology combines anaerobic digestion (AD) with innovative microwave plasma processing. Its aim is being competitive and more sustainable against current end-of-life (incineration, landfill, biological treatment) and production technologies of H2 and C. 
A holistic sustainability analysis including environmental and socio-economic aspects will assess PC´s whole value chain and process steps (AD, biogas upgrading, splitting of biogas methane into high value C and RH2 using plasma, and purification) regarding its sustainability potential. The methods of choice are life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle costing (LCC) and social analysis, as well as comparisons against state of the art technologies. The holistic assessment is complemented by consideration of the process scale up and sensitivity analysis.
Although the project is still running, crucial points identified so far are impacts from the energy consuming plasma process, the procedure of allocation of (food waste) impacts, the quality of biogas and the need of upgrading it. 
 

Keywords

• Sustainable Development
• Efficiency Analysis
• Natural Resources