CoAct

Integrated urban-rural concept for the production of activated carbon and energy sources from residual biomass

The CoAct results have demonstrated the technical feasibility and usefulness of the activated carbons in terms of sustainability. In terms of security of supply in a global context, but also against the background of the expected increase in demand, the CoAct concept continues to appear economically promising. The CoAct results can therefore be used as a starting point to further increase the technological maturity of the approach. The next step would be to pilot the technology on a practical scale with a functioning pilot plant in order to be able to make reliable statements about the costs and practicability of the technology. This would achieve technology maturity level 6. Funding opportunities can be identified and utilised. This should make it possible to bring the approach to technological maturity despite the current lack of economic viability. Because beyond the short-term price of activated carbon, the CoAct approach promises an innovative and sustainable use of unused biomass, the long-term reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere, the increase of regional added value and the avoidance of global supply chain and raw material dependencies. The CoAct approach can thus be a building block of social transformation for sustainable development at the interface of agriculture/forestry, landscape conservation, wastewater and waste management and contribute to the effective and efficient use of resources in the sense of a circular economy. The CoAct research project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of the ‘Stadt-Land-Plus’ funding programme (funding reference 033L206). Project duration is from 01.07.2018 to 31.12.2023. Project management: Prof Dr Michael Wachendorf, University of Kassel. Responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors/project staff of the partner organisations.