Demo case: Bio-based chemical industry
BLOOM
Main challenges of the demo case: In collaboration with ValSynthese, Bloom produces biobased ingredients and intermediates for the chemical industry at a tonnage scale. To meet the strong increase in demand, the company has ambitions to scale the technology into a commercial plant of 50-80 kilo tonnes by 2030. The produced wastewater streams are currently sent to a wastewater treatment plant managed by an external company. The main goals for BLOOM are the reduction in chemicals and raw materials cost through the recovery of valuable reactants and products that can be either reincorporated into the process or sold, as well as the reuse of as much water as possible, as it represents more than 95% of the effluent composition.
Approach to overcome the challenges: The proposed treatment for the effluent streams combines nanofiltration (NF) and/or reverse osmosis (RO). The resulting permeate stream will be reused, while the retentate stream feeds a membrane distillation (MD) unit for further concentration and production of high-quality water. The goal is to recover 90% of the water, with the final retentate containing a concentrated organic fraction that may be valorized by Bloom (expected recovery of over 70%).
