The year 2026 will bring “significant advances in thermochemical technologies to continue moving towards a decarbonised circular economy model”, as they make it possible to obtain high-value products such as biofuels and biomaterials from waste management, according to the Scientific Director of Sustainability Area of Eurecat, Irene Jubany.
In the field of sustainability, “one of the major challenges we have as a society is the proper management of our waste within the framework of the circular economy, resource saving and decarbonisation”, so that “regulations increasingly aim to minimise the amount of waste sent to landfill, with the objective of reducing the environmental impact of our activity. This is why technologies that enable the valorisation of material and energy are being promoted”, argues the Scientific Director of Eurecat’s Sustainability Area.
In this context, “we find thermochemical technologies for waste management. We are referring to the pyrolysis and gasification of waste such as non-recyclable plastics, sewage sludge, the residual fraction or digestates”, technologies which “make it possible to obtain high-value products such as biofuels, biomaterials and gases with energy power, and contribute to promoting a circular bioeconomy and the decarbonisation of society”, she adds.
Pyrolysis and gasification are already implemented in some countries for the utilisation of forest biomass, but they still represent a technological challenge for complex waste streams, where further development is required to make them technically and economically viable.
To address these challenges, specific pre-treatment solutions for heterogeneous waste are being developed, the processes themselves are being optimised through catalysts and innovative reactor designs, research is being carried out into the purification of the gases generated, and suitable applications are being sought for the different products obtained. All of this, notes the Scientific Director of Eurecat’s Sustainability Area, is “combined with the use of digital tools for automation and advanced control to generate robust and safe processes”.
In this regard, the Scientific Director of the Eurecat technology centre, Daniel Casellas, highlights that “one of Eurecat’s key strengths is offering companies the ability to anticipate technological trends, with innovative and high-impact solutions, enabling them to stay ahead of market necessities and deliver value to the economic and industrial fabric and to society as a whole, thanks to the vision of the centre’s multidisciplinary scientific team”.
