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Promoting a circular economy value chain dairy industry byproduct to produce bio-based chemicals, ingredients and biofertilizers
Whey Permeate (WP) and De-lactosed Whey Permeate (DLP) are major byproducts of dairy processing and represent a key challenge for the dairy industry due to a lack of reliability in current disposal routes and represent a sustainability bottleneck for the expansion of milk production in Europe in the “post-milk-quota era”. AgriChemWhey, a BBI JU Flagship initiative, will seek to build a first-of-a kind, industrial-scale biorefinery with integrated symbiotic industrial and agricultural value chains that will have capacity to valorise dairy industry side streams WP and DLP to several added value products for growing global markets including lactic acid, polylactic acid, minerals for human nutrition and bio-based fertilisers
The overall objective of AgriChemWhey is to build a first-of-a kind industrial-scale biorefinery with integrated symbiotic industrial and agricultural value chains to valorise dairy waste. Specific objectives include a) Scale up from Demo-scale (75 MT per capacity annum) to commercial scale (20,000 tonnes per annum capacity) of biorefinery technology for the conversion of food processing residues to food, feed and polymer grade lactic acid (LA) and confirming techno-economic viability of the integrated biorefinery approach, b) Optimize process technologies to reduce the time it takes to produce LA from WP and DLP, increase the yield from 85% to 95% and improve the purification process so that a high purity LA can be achieved using a simplified and energy efficient downstream process, c) Establish a new WP and DLP to LA and PLA value chain based on increased surplus WP and DLP from and the dairy processing industry and create a major new second generation value chain for the growing global LA and PLA market, d) Establishing industrial symbiosis with local partners to valorize gypsum, calcium phosphate and fermentation residue (bacterial biomass) side streams arising from WP and DLP to LA process for agricultural use and human nutrition to improve sustainability and boosting economic return on investments, e) Ensure successful commercial operation of the biorefinery including plans to increase LA production volumes and economies of scale, new capabilities to produce PLA and higher added value valorization of side-streams and the development of a blueprint for replication of the AgriChemWhey model in other regions across Europe
The Global Lactic Acid Market Size accounted for USD 3.1 Billion in 2022 and is projected to achieve a market size of USD 8.1 Billion by 2032 growing at a CAGR of 9.9% from 2023 to 2032.
CO2 savings, from 18,000 tonnes CO2eq/year up to 89,000 tonnes CO2eq/year, greater resource efficiency resulting in reduction of EU lactic acid import (80,000 ton per annum)
Promoting rural growth, competitiveness and job creation, by bringing more value chain from dairy waste streams
Dairy processing industry, Technology providers and End users (lactic acid market)
Dairy wastewater
8
Agrichemwhey
Bacterial fermentation
Biobased chemicals (Lactic acid)
25,000 ton (100% dry matter) of excess WP & DLP perannum
Ireland
2018
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