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Innovation partnership for organic waste management in Paris is making progress
GICON welcomes French delegation to Cottbus
Guided tour of the GICON Biogas Technology Center in Cottbus
The delegation with representatives of Tilia, SIAAP / Syctom and GICON
Starting in early 2018, GICON and its French associate company France Biogaz Valorisation have been part of a Franco-German consortium which is to develop an innovative technology concept for the recovery of residual waste’s organic fraction and other organic residues from the greater Paris region. Development goals are in particular the maximum conversion of organic carbon into the carrier of energy biomethane, the best possible utilization of the resulting by-products, achieving the most positive overall energy balance possible and the use of synergy potentials at the planned implementation site which is one of the wastewater treatment plants of the municipal wastewater company SIAAP. GICON as a consortium member contributes its extensive know-how in biogas research and has taken on the task of conducting laboratory tests for waste characterization and process engineering studies for treatment.
Delegation visits large-scale technical center at GICON's Cottbus location
In mid-September, a seven-member delegation with representatives of the two lead partners SYCTOM (Municipal Waste Management Company of the Paris agglomeration) and SIAAP (Wastewater Treatment Company of Greater Paris) traveled to Cottbus to get an update on the status of the experimental work. Tests with original substrate from France have been taking place for several months at the local GICON site, among them sorting analyses, biogas potential analyses and determination of various physical and chemical parameters. In addition, process engineering tests with original substrate are conducted at the pilot plants. The work is done at GICON’s in-house large-scale technical center which because of its versatile technical equipment is optimally furnished for individual technology developments and processes optimization as well as the testing of substrates. The first results were presented to the guests from France and questions about the process concept were answered. After visiting the pilot plant and the GICON biogas plant in Cottbus, the delegation traveled on to visit the other project partners (Tilia GmbH, German Biomass Research Center and Fraunhofer IGB).
Project presentation in Paris
The laboratory and pilot studies will run until November 2018 so that conclusions on the optimal treatment concept can be presented in Paris later this year. Based on this, the concept of a pilot plant complex at the scale of a large pilot plant will be implemented in a later project phase in order to practically test the innovative concepts. The ultimate long-term goal is the construction and commissioning of a commercial industrial-scale plant in Paris in about 8 years. Four different consortia are currently competing for the bid on this project. All participants presented their approach and process engineering concepts for the first time on September 21st, 2018 at a public presentation in Paris. Between one and two of the four consortia will be selected by SYCTOM/SIAAP in 2019 to build the pilot plants where the proposed innovative treatment methods will have to prove their applicability.
