DESCRIPTION

Project title : Supercritical water co-oxidation (SCWcO) of urban sewage sludges and wastes (LO2X)
Project policy area: water
Programme: Life programme - LIFE12 ENV/ES/000477 -
Project coordinator: AINIA (Spain), Andrés Pascual (apascual@ainia.es), Tel: +34 961 366 090
Partners: AINIA (Spain), IMECAL (Spain), IVEM (Spain) y SCFI (Ireland)
Duration:  01/10/2013 – 31/12/2016
Budget: 2 948 698 € (EU contribution: 50 %)

LO2X is a LIFE ENVIRONMENT funded project which aims to demonstrate the technical, economic and environmental viability of SCWcO technology to treat low quality urban sewage sludge, not eligible for agricultural use, together with other organic wastes generated near the WWTPs such as drencher wastewater, landfill leachates, olive mill wastewater or pig manure.

SCWcO technology is based on the properties of water at temperature and pressure conditions above its critical point (T>374ºC and p>221 bar) in presence of oxygen. The oxidation process occurring in water under supercritical conditions, the so called SCWO process, leads to rapid destruction of a wide variety of organic species, normally considered to be refractory or difficult to break down under conventional treatments, to more simple molecules (such as CO2 and H2O) in quite short reaction times.

In order to perform such a demonstration, one of the key objectives for LIFE LO2X was to design and construct a prototype for the supercritical water co-oxidation of urban sludge and other wastes. The developed prototype, localized in Paterna-Fuente del Jarro WWTP (Valencia, Spain), is able to treat up to 1 tonne of dry matter per day.

The LO2X project is co-financed by the European Union through LIFE programme (ref. LIFE12 ENV/ES/000477), with a total budget of 2,948,698 € (EU contribution: 50%). The consortium includes representatives of several sectors and it is performed through a cross-border collaborative model between Spain and Ireland. AINIA technological centre, has a long experience in developing environmental technologies as well as new applications based on supercritical fluids; with this expertise and being aware of the environmental issues caused by low quality sludge, AINIA decided to lead the LO2X project in cooperation with four more partners: IMECAL, as specialist in equipment construction; IVEM, as responsible for the Paterna-Fuente del Jarro WWTP and specialist in process automation; SCFI, as hi-tech company with a consolidated expertise in advanced hydrothermal oxidation processes; and URBASER, as specialist in the provision of environmental services.