After one year of activities, several results have been achieved:

Under the WP1 (selection of renewable feedstock for ABE fermentation), a preliminary analysis has been conducted by ITACYL together with ENCO on agro-food waste, in order to select the most suitable AFWs wastes to be investigated for biobutanol production. The selected agro-food waste (potato peel, apple pomace, brewers’ spent grain and coffee silverskin) have been chemically characterised and a conservation protocol established.

Recently, the selection of the most suitable biomass degradation pre-treatment for the agro-food waste has been carried out with the aim to improve the ABE fermentation. The task has been completed by ITACYL, which has been working in cooperation with IRIS, TOMSA, IRC-CNR, BIOPOX. Different pre-treatment techniques (autohydrolysis, dilute chemical pretreatment, ultrasound pretreatments, microwave pretreatments, deep eutectic solvents and enzymatic pretreatments), in order to determine the optimal methods for hydrolyzation of the cellulose and hemicellulose fractions and to remove and recovery the ligning fraction.

The selection of pre-treatment techniques was based on cost- and energy-efficiency criteria; high fermentable sugar yield; low concentration of inhibitory compounds for the subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation steps. The pre-treatments have been compared in terms of simple sugars released (glucose, xylose, etc.) and inhibitors generated for the subsequent hydrolysis and fermentation steps.