Industrial symbiosis on CO2 and waste and side stream conversion to sustainable products

Currently fossil raw materials are required to produce majority of the chemicals in the global market. The future economy will rely on the exploitation of waste and side streams. Utilization of side and waste streams also promotes circular economy, sustainable development, low-carbon society, decreases emissions and improves self-sufficiency. Chemicals can be produced with bioprocesses, intensified with synthetic biology. While these processes currently require sugar-rich streams, exploitation of side and waste streams would enable more sustainable production of chemicals. The ambitious aim of this project is to investigate possibilities for producing sustainable chemicals by combining processes in a new way using CO2- or organic-rich side streams. The goal is to identify the necessary unit processes for the selected side streams and products, how the selected processes can be optimised, and how the selected products can be separated. Furthermore, the entire processing chain will be evaluated through assessing its techno-economic potential. The results of the project will increase the export potential of the companies involved. Sustainable raw materials and their efficient exploitation are a prerequisite for Finnish industry and will have an extensive international relevance. As the isoSUS project addresses to making chemicals from side and waste streams as well from CO2, it contributes to companies’ and industry sectors’ several sustainability goals via enabling climate change prevention, reducing use of natural resources, and therefore supporting biodiversity and promoting circular economy approaches. The project consortium includes Tampere University, Natural Resources Institute Finland, University of Eastern Finland, University of Oulu, Borealis, Fortum, Solar Foods and TM Systems.