Title: AccelWater : Accelerating Water Circularity in Food and Beverage Industrial Areas around Europe

Call: H2020-LOW-CARBON-CIRCULAR-INDUSTRIES-2020

Topic: CE-SPIRE-07-2020

Grant Agreement No.:  958266

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Description

The food and drink industry is the EU’s biggest manufacturing. However, this industry is one of the most water and energy intensive industries worldwide while the companies belong to that sector produce a lot of waste. Specifically, the food and beverage industry consumes 56% of the available water for industrial and urban use. Additionally, food processing embeds 28% of the total energy used for production, while the total direct energy consumed by the European food industry amounted to 28.4 Mt oil equivalent, while 30.6 Mt of food waste are produced in this industry. Although, huge steps have been made in increasing the water use efficiency through the use of modern technologies and methods, there is limited effort from the food and beverages industry to minimize freshwater use during the raw material processing. In addition, high water consumption in industrial areas lead to increased production costs due to the fact that the tariffs for public wastewater treatment can be very high in European cities as well as the industrial electricity prices can also be very high. Currently, solutions for wastewater treatment in industries include the use of clarification, membrane filtration, reverse osmosis, process water polishing, disinfection with water treatment chemicals and UV, and biological treatment technologies. However, the use of these technologies under a water-waste energy nexus is very limited. AccelWater’s project main objective is to optimize freshwater water consumption in the food and beverage industry under a water-waste-energy nexus by introducing beyond state-of-the-art water reclaiming, reusing and Artificial Intelligence enabled monitoring and control technologies will permit the use of reclaimed water in the manufacturing processes of food and beverages and on the same time will allow waste and energy reclamation, optimization and management, and consequently will result to environmental and socioeconomic sustainability.

Partners:

Agricultural & Environmental Solutions (Coordinator)

National Technical University of Athens

Institute of Communication and Computer Systems

Athenian Brewery SA

FrieslandCampina Hellas S.A.

Rezos Brands Anonymi Emporiki Eteria Idon Diatrofis (Beneficiary)

DIGNITY Private Company

ProdAl Scarl, Società consortile a responsabilità limitata

Calispa Spa

Associazione Nazionale Industriali Conserve Alimentari Vegetali

FUNDACIÓ UNIVERSITARIA BALMES

ASSOCIACIÓ CATALANA D’INNOVACIÓ DEL SECTOR CARNI PORCÍ INNOVACC

Matadero Frigorífico del Cardoner S.A.

AXIA Innovation UG

University of Iceland

MATIS OHF

Útgerðarfélag Akureyringa EHF

Samherji fiskeldi EHF