SOLIEVA

Circular economy applied to the treatment of table olives brines based on solar evaporation.

The LIFE SOLIEVA project aims to solve environmental challenges of the table olives sector (TO) processing water and update the environmental legislation related to use of water. The project focuses to demonstrate the technical, environmental and economic feasibility of the technology for organic compounds recovery based on membrane, concentrator vacuum and spry dryer (OCR) and advanced solar evaporation (ASE).

The innovation of the project, led by Eurecat, will allow to: recover valuable compounds, e.g. polyphenols, and water; intensify the natural evaporation without energy consumption; improve the resource efficiency with the reduction in the water consumption and the generation of wastewater, as well as the reuse of salt and caustic soda in the production of table olives; and finally, provide recommendations for the updating of wastewater treatment legislation.

To achieve this, LIFE SOLIEVA will implement a pilot plant at a cooperative of table olives located in the south of Spain, as well as other activities to validate and optimize the technology and an evaluation of the environmental and economic impact of the technology.

The Sustainability Technology Unit of Eurecat contributes on the definition and validation of the organic compound recovery process and on the design of the Advanced solar evaporation technology. The project also counts with the participation of Técnica y Proyectos SA (TYPSA), National Technological Centre of Conservation and Alimentation (CTC), CITOLIVA, Panhellenic association of table olive processors, packers and exporters (PEMETE)  and the cooperative Ntra. Sra. de las Virtudes.