This April 1, the ReWoW project “Revolutionizing the Waste of Waste: A new bioeconomy-based business for digestate” begins. With a planned duration of 36 months, ReWoW is one of three projects selected coordinated by Catalan entities and one of five funded across the whole of Spain under the EIC Pathfinder Open 2025 call, which supports visionary ideas to develop radically new technologies with a high-risk, high-impact approach. ENT is one of the consortium partners of new project.
The ReWoW project proposes a disruptive approach to transform digestate, the byproduct of anaerobic digestion, from an environmental burden into a valuable feedstock for a new bioeconomy. The project introduces a novel valorization pathway through the development of Modular Adaptive Fermentation (MAF), a next generation bioprocess that combines microbial bioconversion with artificial intelligence (AI)-driven optimization.
ReWoW will design and validate a modular system that integrates advanced pretreatments, sequential fermentations, and real-time monitoring to convert digestate into three model bioproducts: biosurfactants, aroma compounds, and enhanced soil amendments. A dual-layer AI tool will support the MAF platform, enabling real-time modelling, decision-making, and process control.
By merging expertise in microbiology, engineering, environmental sciences, AI, economics, and policy, ReWoW sets the foundation for a transformative digestate-based biorefinery model. If successful, results will support new business models, regulatory advancements, and industrial applications, repositioning digestate as a cornerstone of an alternative circular bioeconomy.
Fundació ENT leads WP5 (Value chains, social & policy aspects development). This WP aims to identify, support, and enable the development of sustainable value chains and policy frameworks that can drive the widespread adoption of the digestate-based biorefinery defined in the project. This includes analyzing social acceptance, market integration, regulatory barriers, and governance mechanisms to ensure the project’s innovations are embedded in viable economic and policy contexts.