ManuREfinery is one of the projects that have been designed to change the approach to regulating livestock manure. Every year farms in Europe produce more than 1.4 billion tonnes of manure which can lead to pollution; of air, water and soil. This is because ManuREfinery has been developed with the view to make scraperized manure into valuable, bio-based products such as fertilizers and animal feed ingredients. In the ManuREfinery project, these combined advantages are achieved by means of small-scale and mobile biorefineries for the conversion of farm manure into valuable products for farming and other sectors, bypassing common waste streams and limiting the environmental footprint of livestock farming. At the same time this solution opens up new economic perspectives in the European rural regions.
Our project develops flexible systems of portable bio refineries wherein, manure is turned into value-added products like high quality feed and fertilizers. These forms can be moved from one area to another and can be adopted in different types of farms, small-scale units.
The ManuREfinery process is based on thermo-chemical and biotechnological methods and combines digital twin applications. This makes it possible to monitor the data, to fine-tune the conversion which is crucial for high efficiency.
In order to create a long-lasting positive environmental impact on the world, all the steps in the production process are judged based on the principles of good environmental impact and circular economy. Its also important to know that with our system, byproducts of manure are always reused so there is never any waste.
Further, ManuREfinery engages livestock farmers and all the rural players in the development process of the technology to make it realistic and useful to those who are going to embrace it.
Due to this flexibility, different solutions provided within the framework of the ManuREfinery model can be easily adapted for various types of farms and their sizes; thus, solutions may be applied not only throughout Europe but also in other countries.
Table 2.2 Annual global scale Impacts of ManuREfinery
| Environmental savings | Economic savings- Monetisation of environmental impacts | Social impacts | ||||||
| Benefits at EU level | GHG | Acidification | Land use | GHG | Acidification | Land use | New skilled jobs | Capacity building |
| Europe | 5.6 billion t CO2eq | 0.35 billion t SO2eq | 59.9 billion m2a cropeq | 0.37 billion € | 2.2 billion of € | 1.7 billion of € | 5,000 | 30,000 trainings |
Innovative, Adaptable Technology: ManuREfinery focuses on the construction of fully reusable, modular biorefinery systems that can be applicable at different types of farms, including pig, poultry and cattle farms located in rural areas of Europe.
Environmental Impact: From cutting greenhouse gas emissions right through to preserving the quality of the soil and water there is our project of the cleaner agriculture. Because the bacteria grab nutrients and valuable compounds right out of the manure, we do not pollute and we use everything.
Community Partnerships: Acceptance of the innovations is important, thus, we involve local communities, farmer associations and other stakeholders to ensure that the proposed solutions are relevant. This assists in envisioning solutions that are attainable, acceptable to the user, and, therefore, revolutionary.
The core technologies for converting manure into bio-based products include gas, liquid, and solid valorization lines.
Gas Valorization: Developing biofiltration and ammonia recovery processes to produce sodium nitrate, a valuable fertilizer ingredient, through biofiltration technology.
Liquid Valorization: Constructing an anaerobic digestion setup for separating and treating liquid waste, capturing nitrogen and phosphorus for fertilizer production.
Solid Valorization: Designing processes to handle solid manure waste through drying and gasification, converting it into bio-based fuels and microbial protein for feed.
Digital Twin Integration: Building a digital twin (virtual model) of each valorization line to optimize real-time process control, efficiency, and safety through advanced data analytics and simulations.