RE-DIRECT

Motivation

Every year, at least 34 million tons of residual biomass from the management of rural landscapes and urban greenery is wasted in North West Europe (NWE). On the other hand, there is a growing market for sustainable and decentralized products such as activated carbon, which is used in wastewater technologies to purify water contaminated with complex chemical substances or antibiotics. RE-DIRECT is a comprehensive concept to promote the efficient use of natural resources and materials by converting residual biomass into carbon products and activated carbon in smart regional decentralized plants.

Goals and approach

RE-DIRECT aims to establish decentralized conversion plants to convert residual biomass into alternative carbon products. The focus is on activated carbon, which is to be used for the purification of regional wastewater and contaminated sites.

In the first phase of the project, a network for alternative carbon products was established and the collection, production and management of the value chain of alternative coal and carbon products was promoted as a starting point for a circular economy.

Innovations and prospects

RE-DIRECT builds on the proven technology for the integrated production of solid fuels and biogas from biomass (IFBB). 20,000 tons of unused biomass are converted into regionally specific carbon products, including activated carbon, as part of a circular economy concept. In the first phase of the project, regional and interregional stakeholder communities (biomass waste producers, industry, SMEs, NGOs, researchers and regional stakeholders) were brought together to research, develop and manage region-specific product portfolios and create economic value chains within transferable "integrated biomass concepts". In addition, the project developed a large-scale investment for the production of biochar and activated carbon at an urban biomass conversion center in Germany and a small-scale agricultural conversion plant in Wales. This has created 20 jobs in the immediate vicinity of the plant and provided additional employment and income projects for disadvantaged groups in society (the unemployed and those living in underdeveloped rural areas).

In the second phase of the project, the capitalization of the project results will be developed through activities in two levels:

1. The combination of RE-DIRECT biochar production and urban climate change mitigation and adaptation through urban vertical farming opens a new field of application as it combines urban climate improvement and quality of life enhancement with urban carbon sequestration, thus providing an additional circular carbon business case in regional development plans.
2. For urban agriculture, the conversion technology can be optimized to a) improve the surface and physico-chemical parameters for an optimized substrate for urban agriculture and b) also use the gas from pyrolysis to increase the efficiency and sustainability of the RE-DIRECT concept and generate additional fuel.