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Biorefinery: The waste transformation journey


Highfield Campus



Building: 38 | Staff Club

Room: Garden Court

Age suitable for:
  • All ages


Visit:  



Did you know that the UK generate about 9.5 million tonnes of food waste each year, worthing around £14 billion?

Join members of the Water and Environmental Engineering group to discover how this waste is not be truly wasted, but can be turned into valuable resources. We will take you on a journey where organic waste, like food scraps, are transformed into renewable bioenergy and high-value chemicals through biological processes such as fermentation and anaerobic digestion. In this journey, you will explore key processes of waste transformation through a series of activities including:

• waste sortation and pre-processing - Learn how we separate food waste from bags, containers and large items

• Waste-to-energy - Discover how food waste turns into biogas and how it generates heat and electricity

• Waste-to-chemicals - discover valuable chemicals we can produce from food waste, how they are made, and their applications.

Plus, you will also get a close-up look at how lab-scale digesters work in this process!