WASTE2WEALTH · A fungi-based biotechnological platform for competitive multi-stream waste revalorization.

The EC’s Circular Economy Action Plan targets textiles as one of the sectors to be drastically transformed into a circular economy. However, the recycling of textile waste is severely limited by the need to accurately separate the different types of fibre, as they require separate recycling processes. This results in most of it currently being incinerated or landfilled.At Novobiom, we valorise widely available resources currently under-exploited by harnessing the amazing ability that fungi exhibit in nature to recycle a wide range of materials. Our biorefinery platform implements a tailored solid-state fungal fermentation process, based on our exclusive fungal strain bank and fungal strain selection, development and optimisation process.Our first application focuses on textile waste. By valorising unused textile waste, we offer a cost-effective alternative to recycle mixed waste streams, drastically reducing the textile products incinerated or sent to landfill while producing high-quality products (biosurfactants to substitute chemical-based surfactants, enzymes and biogas) at lower prices. These products are of interest in various industries (cosmetics, cleaning products, etc.).During the project we will build a fungal biorefinery pilot plant (200 t/yr), operated with textile waste. After that, we will engineer and commission a flagship demo plant (12,000t/year). This will de-risk the project enough to open an investment round to finance the scale-up of the technology.Once scaled, our biorefinery can enable the transformation towards circularity of complex waste streams and fulfil the needs of different customers (e.g. textile, cosmetics) with affordable high-quality sustainable biomaterials.