“In September 2022, the CROSS-LIFE CROtonic Acid from Sewage Sludge project, funded by the European Union LIFE Program (grant agreement no. 101074164) until 2026 and coordinated by the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna with the participation of industrial and academic partners such as B-Plas Sbrl, Unigrà, Gruppo Tea AqA Srl, Vinavil and the University of Pavia, began. The project proposes an integrated technology for the management of civil and industrial sewage sludge oriented to the dual objectives of decreasing the volume of sludge to be treated at the end of its life and exploiting the sludge as a raw material to produce crotonic bio-acid as an alternative to crotonic acid from fossil sources currently used for the production of poly(vinyl acetate-co-chrotonate) co-polymer. In the first months of the project, experimentation and engineering activities related to the construction of the two plants to be built at Unigrà in Conselice (RA) and the AqA purification plant in Gonzaga (MN) were started. The crotonic acid produced downstream of the process will be used by Vinavil jointly with the University of Pavia to formulate the co-polymer poly(vinyl acetate-co-bio crotonate), introducing to the market a new monomer obtained from waste in a perspective of industrial symbiosis and circular economy.”

Press release published in the July Clust-ER Greentech Energy and Sustainable Development newsletter.