CAFIPLA

Combining carboxylic acid production and fibre recovery as an innovative, cost effective and sustainable pre-treatment process for heterogeneous bio-waste

Project

The CAFIPLA project was funded under the Horizon 2020 program and successfully concluded in 2023. Its mission: to transform heterogeneous organic waste into valuable bio-based building blocks through a dual-platform pre-treatment process. This innovative approach tackled the challenge of treating mixed biowaste—such as municipal organic waste, sewage sludge, and industrial residues—by combining two complementary technologies: the Carboxylic Acid Platform (CAP) and the Fibre Recovery Platform (FRP) .

The CAP converts easily degradable fractions into short-chain carboxylic acids (SCCAs), which serve as precursors for bioplastics, microbial proteins, and medium-chain acids like caproic acid.

DRANCO’s role: Driving CAP Innovation

As a key technology partner, DRANCO played a central role in developing and validating the Carboxylic Acid Platform. Building on its extensive experience in anaerobic fermentation, DRANCO helped demonstrate how organic side streams could be transformed into volatile fatty acids (VFAs)—including acetic, butyric, and caproic acids—at pilot scale.

DRANCO’s contributions included:

• Process development and optimization of CAP fermentation.
• Integration with existing biogas infrastructure, enabling energy recovery from the solid fraction post-fermentation.
• Downstream processing research, in collaboration with UGent, VUB, and VITO, to purify and concentrate VFAs for industrial use.
• The CAP process reached Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5–6 during CAFIPLA, laying the groundwork for future scale-up and commercialization.

Looking ahead

DRANCO continues to build on CAFIPLA’s legacy through follow-up initiatives aimed at scaling CAP to TRL-7 and integrating it with fiber recovery and bioplastics production. A new pilot plant is in development to demonstrate the full potential of this energy-negative, zero-waste biorefinery concept.

 CAFIPLA exemplifies how collaborative innovation can unlock new value from waste and accelerate the transition to a circular bioeconomy—a mission DRANCO remains deeply committed to.

More about CAFIPLA: Click HERE