The International Conference on Sustainable Solid Waste Management (also called CORFU 2022) took place on the Greek island of Corfu from 15-18 June. This year, in its ninth edition, it sought to address the important issue of sustainable solid waste management by promoting safe practices and effective technologies. It aimed to stimulate the interest of scientists and citizens and inform them about the latest developments in the field of municipal solid waste management. The exhibitions were located in the Municipal Theatre in the city center, but could also be viewed online, subject to prior registration and booking.
The topics discussed were closely related to the ECOVAL project and its innovations. Therefore, on Thursday 16th at 18:00hrs, Ánder Castro, researcher at CETAQUA, presented the results obtained through experimentation in the pilot WWTP of Ourense. The paper is entitled “Thermal hydrolysis pre-treatment has no positive influence on VFA production from sewage sludge” and is the result of the research carried out by Ánder himself together with S. Balboa, V. Paramá, B. Álvarez, C. Castro-Barros, J.M. Lema and A. Taboada-Santos. It is part of session XV of the event, in room 3, dedicated to the waste valorisation.
More specifically, the talk dealt with the effect of sewage sludge pre-treatments (in particular the so-called thermal hydrolysis) on the production of volatile fatty acids. This knowledge is very useful to reinforce the overall objective of the conference: to go a step further in solid waste management, for which it helps a lot to learn how to achieve value-added products by applying biorefinery processes to them.
The conference was a great opportunity to brought together scientists and professionals from government departments, industry, municipalities, universities, private companies and research centres, providing a forum for the exchange of the latest ideas and techniques in the world of waste management.