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Why electrodialysis is important to design the RUSTICA Bio-based fertilizer
Electrodialysis (ED), as highlighted in Fig.1 is one of the competitive membrane-based technologies for separating NPKs and Volatile Fatty Acids (VFAs) from fermented food wastes.
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It applies electric current and ion exchange membranes (IEMs) to separate the NPKs and VFAs into their purer forms (Fig. 2). Because electrodialysis mainly separates the NPKs and VFAs based on their ionic charges, it produces products of higher purity, higher concentration and less water (Fig. 3), which are mainly difficult to be attained simultaneously via Nanofiltration (NF) and Reverse Osmosis (RO). Therefore, UGent, as a partner of the RUSTICA project, targeted at closing the loop of circular economy is applying laboratory and pilot scale ED (Fig. 4 and 5) to produce NPKs and VFAs of higher purity and higher concentrations (Fig. 6). The purer NPKs produced shall be used for bio-based fertilizer applications whereas the VFAs shall be used for fuels, biodegradable plastics, and oils (Fig. 7), as alternative to fossil-based products.
More news about this project:
Stakeholders workshop in Valle del Cauca region (Colombia)
On 5th of November took placed an stakeholders workshop in the frame of RUSTICA project in Valle del Cauca region. In the following lines you will see how the workshop was organized.
The first workshop of RUSTICA project in Spain took place in Almería on 10th November of 2021
Tecnova counts on the presence of 10 stakeholders of the Rustica project (in Almería - Spain) to obtain bio-based fertilisers from organic fruit and vegetable waste.
Productive RUSTICA project meeting and inspiring field visits in Almeria
The RUSTICA project started in January 2021, with as key objective research on the processing of fruit and vegetable waste into bio-based fertilizers. Due to the Covid crisis, the consortium could not have any live meeting so far. But last week, finally, a real project meeting took place in Almeria.