AnoxKaldnes’ CellaTM Technology Shortlisted for Prestigious Award

Phil Black - PII Editor 26/04/2016

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Veolia Water Technologies has been shortlisted for the prestigious Most Innovative New Technology of the Year at this year’s Water Industry Achievement Awards. The listing is for AnoxKaldnes’ CellaTM Technology which produces bioplastics from sewage treatment sludge.

Bioplastics, based on polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) have been produced industrially by the fermentation of sugars since the 1980s, but CellaTM converts organic matter (COD) in domestic residual streams such as wastewater, waste activated sludge, municipal organic wastes, and other industrial or agricultural wastes or by-products.

The first biopolymers were produced by CellaTM prototype plants in Belgium and Sweden in the autumn of 2011, and pilot plants are now also operating in The Netherlands and Denmark. Recent development work has focused on optimising conditions in the activated sludge process for the selective growth of biomass with PHA-storing capacity.

The product of the process, CellaPol™, is a feedstock that can be formulated into bioplastics as a replacement for fossil fuel derived plastics. Bioplastics have a broad range of applications from commodity products such as packaging, coatings, and utensils, all the way up to very specialised applications, such as composite materials for car bumpers. And they have the advantage that, being fully biodegradable, they can be recycled using the same process, closing the loop on the “circular economy”.

The WIAA Most Innovative New Technology of the Year winning entry will be announced at a gala dinner on the night of Tuesday 17 May at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole.

To learn more about CellaTM and the potential of this innovative technology visit www.technomaps.veoliawatertechnologies.com/cella/en/ or register for the SludgeTech 2016 conference at the University of Surrey, Guildford on 27-29 June where Veolia’s Thomas Welander will be presenting a paper on Bio-polymer generation from wastewater.