NIAGARA’s project intends to make a significant contribution to the development of a sustainable process chain, involving the shaping and procurement of openly available EU biogenic wastes (wastewaters, digestate, sewage sludge etc.), a production of carbohydrate-rich microalgae , an innovative continuous and flexible HTC process to convert the mix of biogenic wastes and microalgae into a solid fraction (hydrochar) and an aqueous phase that will in turn be converted into an advanced biofuel (a biogenic syngas rich in hydrogen) via gasification and aqueous phase reforming. Subsequent syngas cleaning processes are envisaged to ensure a full compatibility of the syngas to the solid oxide fuel cells. NIAGARA’s value chain will feature a very low carbon balance with a strong potential to become carbon negative overtime. NIAGARA will dramatically improve advanced biofuel production by combining complementary scientific and industrial know-how while fostering various promising market applications (e.g., fuel cells). the NIAGARA methodology, which derives from the ambitious idea of producing advanced biofuels from EU-widely available biomasses and wastes on a fully circular basis, making this value chain ultimately sustainable. The main market application that is sought in the NIAGARA project is the generation of electricity using highly efficient SOFC. This implies (i) individually developing key innovative and carbon-efficient processes, (ii) assessing their performances (carbon footprints, energy balance and production yields), and (iii) demonstrating their integration and global compatibility to reach the objective of negative carbon emission on the biofuel production chain up to the generation of electricity. NIAGARA will contribute towards lowering the technological, economic, and social barriers faced by the development of the contemplated processes at TRL5. The outcome of this work will contribute directly and significantly to EU’s overall renewal energy targets.

Gathering 17 partners from 7 countries, METHAREN aims to demonstrate a cost-effective, innovative, more sustainable and circular biomethane production system enabling renewable energy sources intermittency management. To do so, METHAREN is providing improvements beyond the state-of-the art along four main axes related to: i) the biogas plant efficiency; ii) flexibility and energy management for RES integration; iii) the circularity approach for sustainable production and iv) innovative business models and adapted policies. The consortium will use the results of the engineering specifications (WP1) to develop the technologies related to the gasification plant (WP2), the methanation plant (WP3) and the development of the circularity (WP4) in the various processes as METHAREN will reuse water, O2 from the electrolysis, and heat to foster overall efficiency and sustainability. All individually developed and tested systems will then be integrated and tested in a pilot site (WP5) before being operated and optimised for more than a year (WP6). In parallel, the market uptake and exploitation of solutions will be carried out all along the project to ensure that the technologies develop will answer market needs (WP7) while dedicated communication and dissemination activities (WP8) will ensure that the results of the project are known and used by relevant stakeholders. Coordinated by a European industrial engineering world leader, the management of the project (WP9) will also be ensured by WP leaders, who all have strong experience and excellent expertise in their fields as research and technical centres, engineering development companies, or industrials. This combined expertise will allow METHAREN to demonstrate an increase of cost effectiveness by at least 20% while reaching a carbon conversion rate from biowaste to methane higher than 80%, a reduction of GHG emission compared to current process by 50% and the potential of replication on at least 30 other sites in Europe.