From the 12th to the 14th of June, 2017, WE&B participated in the Kick-off Meeting of the H2020 project RUN4LIFE. The kick-off meeting was held in Sneek, Netherlands, at one of the 4 Demonstration Sites of the project.

In this 4 year project, WE&B will be leading Work Package 6 Strategic Organisational and Social Innovation. In this WorkPackage WE&B will lead the tasks: Socio-environmental situational map and the task Strategic social engagement. For these tasks WE&B will be innovating by developing a fresh new way of visualising stakeholders and their interaction before engaging with the stockholders to engage them in the development of the nutrient recovery technologies of the RUN4LIFE technology.

The RUN4LIFE project: Domestic wastewater (WW) is an important carrier of nutrients usually wasted away by current decentralised WW treatments (WWT). Run4Life proposes an alternative strategy for improving nutrient recovery rates and material qualities, based on a decentralised treatment of segregated black water (BW), kitchen waste and grey water combining existing WWT with innovative ultra-low water flushing vacuum toilets for concentrating BW, hyper-thermophilic anaerobic digestion as one-step process for fertilisers production and bio-electrochemical systems for nitrogen recovery. It is foreseen up to 100% nutrient (NPK) recovery (2 and >15 times current P and N recovery rates) and >90% water reuse.

Obtained products will be >90% reused thanks to prospective end-users in the consortium and a new Business model based on a cooperative financial scheme. Run4Life impacts will be evaluated on safety and security (Risk Assessment), from an environmental point of view (Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Technical Verification), on the economy (Benefit Cost Analysis) and considering Social Risk Perception. Active measures will be developed with the support of a Stakeholders and Exploitation Panel for achieving institutional, legal and social acceptance. Different parts of Run4Life will be large scale demonstrated at 4 demo-sites in Belgium, Spain, Netherlands and Sweden, adapting the concept to different scenarios (market, society, legislation). Performance tests will be carried out with obtained products (compared to commercial fertilisers) with close collaboration with fertiliser companies. Process will be optimised by on-line monitoring key performance indicators (nutrient concentration, pathogens, micropollutants). The information obtained in the 4 demo-sites will be used for process simulation to conceive a unified Run4Life model which will be applied in a fifth demo-site in Czech Republic, allowing new business opportunities and providing data for critical raw material policies.

 

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