ULTIMATE - Assessment of baseline conditions for all case studies

Ultimate aims to establish and foster water smart industrial symbiosis by implementing circular economy solutions for water, material and energy recovery. The circular economy solutions shall create a win-win situation for both the water sector and the industry. In nine case studies the water sector forms those symbiosis with companies from the agro-food, beverage, petrochemical, chemical and biotech industry.
Objective of the deliverable and links to other deliverables – This deliverable describes the symbiosis in detail and the situation in the case studies before the start of Ultimate. A special focus is put on the technological units which were already in place before Ultimate and the available flow streams as resources for the new Ultimate solutions. Relevant data of those flow streams were collected in the frame of this deliverable to describe the baseline conditions that existed before the start of Ultimate. They will be used as a basis to quantify the improvements of the case study due to the implementation of the Ultimate circular economy solutions. The results will be presented in the deliverables D1.3 –D1.5 New approaches and best practices for closing the water, energy and material cycles within symbiosis cluster.
Furthermore, other work packages (WP), specifically WP2 and WP5, will need those data for their life cycle assessments in D2.2 LCA, cost and risk assessment for WSIS and their KPI tool in D2.5 A KPI Tool for WSIS Performance Assessment as well as for assessing starting conditions and requirements for other potential replication sites in D5.6 Three Ultimate WSIS Integrated Assessments, respectively. The data were collected via excel templates from the case studies. The time period of the presented data comprises usually one full year of operation. The most important data are presented in the paragraphs Detailed description of the technological solution before Ultimate. In the subsequent paragraph Baseline Conditions, those and additional data are presented in more detail showing average, minimum and maximum values for each parameter as well as standard deviations. As an outlook for the expected results from Ultimate, the Ultimate solutions are briefly presented and the planned key performance indicators, which will be used in the upcoming technological deliverables (D1.3-D1.5) to evaluate the performance of the Ultimate solutions are displayed.
Results – The baseline data of the nine case studies showed for all of them high potentials for the implementation of circular economy solutions. Especially the cooperation of the industry with the water sector creates a win-win situation for both enabling the implementation of the Ultimate solutions. Tab. 1 gives an overview of the different types of resources and their potential for the implementation of recovery technologies for water, energy and material.