Waste Oils RecycLe and Development (WORLD)

Polimi role:
Coordinator
Scientific coordinator:
Andrea Mele
Although several Countries have enacted specific legislations in order to boost the recycling of used vegetable oils, the limits of the current technology don’t allow a proper reutilization of such raw material. The project WORLD aims to develop a virtuous green process for WCOs recycling which applying a circular economy model. An innovative fast and zero-waste production of biolubricants from WCOs will be developed employing green and recyclable raw materials (water and natural bentonites). The wastewaters and the contaminated bentonites will be recycled in two independent sub-processes. In addition to the biolubricants production, the possibility to obtain a suitable medium for VOCs treatment from WCOs will be considered. The scientific part of the project will be developed in agreement to the economic guidelines defined by UBU-ICCRAM. In fact, in order to develop a circular economy model and to produce refined products competitive on the global market, a detailed business plan will be edited. The recycling of the raw materials, the minimization of Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) and reduction of the production costs with respect to existing processes, will be exploited for build the economic plan. The Company GESTTA will guarantee assistance in the scale-up step will facilitate the brake into the market of the refined products. Life Cycle Assessment studies (LCA) and market analyses performed by UBU-ICCRAM will enhance the market competitiveness of the proposed process. The optimized transfer of know-how and skills within the Staff members involved from the academic and private sectors, as well as the best strategies of value chain analysis, scaling-up analysis and financial requirements analysis, during all the duration of the project will be guaranteed by the contribution to the project of FYD, an Italian Company specialized in transfer of knowledge activities.
Program: Horizon 2020
Subprogram: Pillar I - Excellent Science
Call: H2020-MSCA-RISE-2019
Topic: MSCA-RISE-2019 - Research and Innovation Staff Exchange
Start date: 01-10-2020
Length: 48 months