The final CAFIPLA market report highlights the role of biowaste as essential resource for a growing circular bio-based economy

The present final report on the market assessment of CAP/FRP based bioproducts and CAFIPLA as technology evaluates the CAFIPLA platform and products in the bigger picture of the bioeconomy expansion. Biomass represents an essential resource for biomanufacturing and demand as well as competition will increase accordingly in a growing bioeconomy.

Biowaste as abundant and currently underused feedstock will therefore play a key role in

  • creating novel urban bioeconomic value chains,
  • closing the loops for various material streams,
  • mitigating climate change by reducing emissions from landfills and
  • increasing independence from fossil raw materials.

Exploiting this potential by developing the needed technologies to create biowaste based production routes are consequently paramount to establish a competitive European bioeconomy.

The CAFIPLA technology as stand alone biorefinery concept turns heterogenous biowaste into valuable platform products and end products with high market potentials. Furthermore, the CAFIPLA platform offers an attractive complementation for anaerobic digestion plants by generating end products with 3-15 times higher value per ton of input material compared to conventional valorisation approaches. The CAFIPLA process additionally represents an economic alternative or add on for conventional sugar based biorefineries by extending the circular product portfolio while avoiding energy and chemical costs for sugar extraction.

With the TRL 5 CAFIPLA pilot plant, a successful demo case for the CAFIPLA biowaste valorisation concept was established at the organic waste treatment site of IDELUX in Belgium. The targeted treatment of easily biodegradable and recalcitrant fractions via the two CAFIPLA platforms, CAP and FRP, allows for an optimised conversion into the platform products carboxylic acids and recovered fibres. The pilot is designed to treat up to 10 tonnes of separately collected biowaste per year, reaching carboxylic acid and fibre yields of more than 80 and demonstrates the upscaling potential of the CAFIPLA process.

The CAFIPLA end products PHA, biocomposites, insulation materials, fibre based mortars, microbial protein as well as caproic acid bio oils target various attractive markets The diverse applications in e.g. the bioplastics, construction and automotive industry, the food, feed and agricultural sector, the bulk chemical industry and the energy sector highlight the relevance of biowaste derived materials in an expanding bioeconomy.