The viticulture and winery wastes, such as vine shoots and grape stalks are plant tissues presenting an under-exploited potential. Their current uses are incineration and landfilling, despite their composition in high value molecules, such as polyphenols. After lignin, condensed tannins are the most abundant polyphenols in the plant kingdom and their extracts are exploited in food and personal care sectors, with health claims mainly related to their antioxidant capacity. Their phenolic structures also offer promising alternatives as substitutes to bisphenol A, a petrochemical widely used in plastic synthesis and formulation which accumulates in the environment, generates health concerns and was recently recognized as an endocrine disruptor.

Tannins extracted from wine residues have been depolymerized in order to obtain stable phenolic building blocks that were further converted into epoxy prepolymer. This epoxy prepolymer was combined with a biobased hardener coming from vegetable fermentation to produce a new biobased epoxy resin. Numerous applications for this 100% biosourced material were identified, such as coatings (floor surfaces, electronic boards, surf boards, food containers, cans ...), epoxy paints, high strength adhesives and composite materials.

Disposal of the fruit and vegetable wastes improperly pollutes soil and water, with loss of resources as they are rich in moisture and carbohydrates, some even containing considerable quantities of proteins and fats which can be converted to value-added products. Currently, fruit and vegetable-based products including bio-fuels, enzymes, food flavoring and organic acids have been successfully developed. Fruit and vegetable wastes can be used for succinic acid production. Succinic acid, as a versatile building block which holds a wide variety of applications in detergent/surfactant, food, and pharmaceutical industries, has drawn great attention over the past decade. Nevertheless, current method of producing succinic acid is still dominated by petrochemical process.

It was demonstrated that succinic acid can be produced from fruit & vegetable waste hydrolysate by using an engineered yeast Yarrowia lipolytica. Optimized succinic acid production was obtained via in-situ fibrous bed bioreactor and fed batch fermentation.

First investigation of mixed fruit and vegetable waste for succinic acid production. Succinic acid is a platform chemical with numerous industrial applications, such as building block for polymers. It is very important to develop a low-cost production process. Using fruit and vegetable waste as feedstock is one of the sustainable options to produce succinic acid, as they are rich in nutrients and carbohydrates.

Increasing demand for biodegradable poly(butylene succinate) (PBS), which has comparable mechanical properties to polyethylene, will open up a new market for succinic acid.

Traditionally, wine pomace has been used to obtain wine alcohol, food colourings, and grape seed oils but the bioactive compounds such as polyphenols have new potentials. Polyphenols extracted from wine pomace or other plant waste (e.g: tea) are suitable for coating applications, that resulted a good option to produce an antioxidant/antibacterial packaging.

Experiments on the exploitation of polyphenols extracted from tea to produce an active packaging, demonstrated inhibiting bacterial growth in the presence of polyphenol and thus delay the spoilage of packaged foods.

Modified polyphenol coatings with improved adhesion on various plastic substrates (PHA, PLA, PS, PE and PP) were obtained which maintained antimicrobial/anti-oxidation properties. Polyphenol coatings on plastic substrates and absorbent pad inhibit bacterial growth on contact surface of fresh meats, thus can be applied to conventional and active packagings to minimize food waste. It is 100% biosourced material.

The NoAW project focuses on the development of sustainable innovative approaches to create added-value by converting unavoidable agricultural waste into eco-efficient bio-based products, in a cascading approach and with respect of the nutrient cycle. Designing regional sustainable business and marketing concepts for cross-sectorial valorisation of agro by-products is a real challenge as it implies many actors and knowledge from multiple domains.

A holistic eco-innovative approach allowing to develop the most fitting regional business concepts to ensure long term sustainability in real industrial context has been developed and applied to 2 NoAW values chains. All the relevant techno-economic and environmental insights demonstrated along the NoAW project have been valorized via a strategic approach relying on the Business Model Generation methodology and the collective intelligence. 2 business concepts are described including relevant actors, organizational set-up, infrastructures and investment efforts, material flows, key sustainability indicators, key transversal success factors, potential legal entities and financing model, SWOT analysis, suggested policy levers and mapping of the European potential. An examples of potential identified is a regional business concept for manure/straw valorisation into bioenergy and biodegradable biobased plastic as alternative to fossil-based plastics for niche markets where biodegradability is an asset, for instance for mulching films in agriculture; or a regional business concept for polyphenol extraction from wine pomaces for future usages in active packaging combined with the use of the residues for energy production (biogas) or filler application (biomaterials).

Geographic Information System (GIS) and spatial data was used at vineyards and wineries of Oplenac wine region in Serbia.

Each location of the vineyard is associated with many attributes important for the vineyard maintenance: parcel size, number of plants and planting age, variety, amount of pruning waste, etc.

Based on field measurements, waste quantities were calculated and estimated for wineries.

These calculations/estimations served as an input to identify current state of agro-waste management at regional level as well as a basis for the development of a more objective Agro-Waste Management Plan.

GIS database become a starting point for creating integral information waste management system, enabling monitoring, updating data on waste and serve as a basis for planning the waste management strategy at the regional level, and potentially on the national level.

This work triggered a change in practices in the surveyed region in Serbia: until now, waste was discharged (and quite inappropriately …) and thanks to NoAW – work, economic actors became aware of the potential and prepare to use the waste for heating in the future.



Geodatabase is available via Web GIS portal on: https://cloud.gdi.net/visios/NoAW

At present, most sweet potato leaves are discarded as waste in China. Only a fraction of sweet potato leaves was consumed as a fresh or quick-frozen vegetable. Owing to the limited processing, storage and transportation opportunities, the nutrient loss from the fresh or quick-frozen sweet potato leaves is extremely high.

Using sweet potato leaves as raw materials, it is processed by a new type drying and milling technology, which can better retain the heat sensitive components in sweet potato leaves. Sweet potato leaf powder product is rich in nutritional and functional components, such as protein, polyphenols, dietary fiber, etc. It can be used as a solid beverage, or can be added into other food products such as steam bread, bread, cake, etc.

Sweet potato leaf polyphenols can be produced of sweet potato leaves as raw material, using ultrasonic assisted ethanol solvent extraction technology, membrane separation purification technology and freeze-drying technology. Sweet potato leaf polyphenols are a powdery product with the purity of more than 90%. This product has strong antioxidant, anti-cancer, anti-mutation, antibacterial, hypoglycemic and other biological activities, and can be widely used in food, medicine, cosmetics and other fields.

Owing to the low moisture content (less than 10%), the new products developed would not only reduce transportation and storage costs but would also have extended shelf lives. In addition, our new products possess high nutritional and functional properties and can be widely used in food, medicine, cosmetics and other fields.

Poly(hydroxy-3-butyrate-co-3-valerate)-based biocomposites are multi-phasic materials made of PHBV as matrix and lignocellulosic particles as fillers. In the NoAW project, lignocellulosic fibres were obtained by dry fractionation of vine shoots or wine pomace, which are both agricultural residues. Biocomposites with filler content up to 30 wt% were produced by melt extrusion, i.e. a process using no solvent nor additives. The development of composite structures allows to modulate the functional properties of PHBV (e.g. increase of gas permeability), while lowering the overall cost and the environmental impact of PHBV (especially the impact on global warming) proportionally to the filler content. The addition of lignocellulosic fillers also slightly accelerates the biodegradation of the materials in soil. On the other hand, the material gets a little bit more brittle with increasing filler content, which can be a hurdle for some applications. It was demonstrated that a first step of polyphenol extraction had no significant impact on the performance of biocomposites. Thus, in a biorefinery approach, it would be worth extracting polyphenols before using these agro-residues as fillers in bioomposites, in order to exploit their full potential. Such biocomposites could be used for injection moulding or thermoforming applications. Applications where full biodegradability in natural conditions is needed are the most relevant, e.g. for horticultural and agricultural purposes. The food contact ability should be now checked to be able to use such materials as food packaging materials.

Lignocellulosic biomass is considered as recalcitrant feedstock for anaerobic digestion (AD) due to its protective structure that limits its biological degradation. Thus, many agricultural waste types are only partly converted or are not considered for AD. Therefore, suitable pre-processing for the improvement of the performance of conventional AD remains a challenge in the development of anaerobic digestion technology.

Aalborg Universitet and BioVAntage.dk Aps operated and monitored a demonstration-scale wet explosion pre-treatment plant (AD-Booster™) at Ribe Biogas, Denmark, a full-scale biogas plant.

The AD-Booster™ was inserted in the plants two-step digestion process. Unconverted manure fibres from the first digester were dewatered and pretreated in the AD-Booster prior to the secondary digestion step. During the operation period, process parameters were tuned to maximize methane production of the biogas plant and achieve a significant conversion of lignocellulosic matter into biogas.

The AD-Booster ™ was brought into stable operation and delivered pre-treated materials to one out of three parallel secondary digesters. The pre-treatment resulted in 2.44 times higher methane production, when compared to secondary digestion without pre-treatment. Biogas plants will benefit from higher revenue form increased biogas production or reduced costs for feedstock.

Existing anaerobic digestion (AD) technology offers a consolidated way to convert many agro-wastes into biogas and fertilizer. Nonetheless the huge concentration of AD plant especially in livestock area can cause environmental burdens due to excess of digestate generated. Solid digestate from AD can be further valorised through pyrolysis process for energy production (bio-oil, syngas) and biochar.

Solid separated digestate from agricultural biogas plant was selected and converted to value-added products through pyrolysis process. The cascaded AD and pyrolysis approach improved energy recovery through the production of energy carriers such e.g. bio-oil, syngas. This cascaded approach resulted also in biochar production for agronomic uses that properties respects International Norms (IBI: International Biochar Initiative; EBC: European Biochar Certificate). The combination of liquid digestate and biochar also allow to improve plant growth yield on wheat and tomatoes.

This approach increases the value of digestates and introduce a new way of digestate valorisation which could improve the economic and environmental sustainability of existing biogas plants.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) technology offers a consolidated way to convert many agro-wastes into biogas and digestate, a renewable fertilizer.

Nutrients in digestate can be recycled back to the fields for crops growth in order to have a renewable fertilizer.

A smart way of digestate use was defined in the project: a near-infra-red system allowed for the proper management of nutrients loads on fields.

The NIR measuring system can be used for analysing the nutrients in digestate produced from manure and agro-waste both in storage systems and on mobile machines.

To connect NIR values with nutrients management, a farm management software will be used to adapt artificial fertilizer application and digestate distribution.

It was therefore possible to minimize the effect and risk of environmental impact of nutrients extra loading.