ReWOW kicks off in Barcelona to turn digestate into high value bioproducts

The ReWOW project officially started its activities with a two-day kick-off meeting held on 12 and 13 May 2026 at UAB Casa Convalescència in Barcelona. The meeting brought together around 30 representatives from all consortium organisations to align the project’s scientific, technical and strategic priorities for the coming months.

Coordinated by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), ReWOW — Revolutionising the Waste of Waste: A New Bioeconomy-Based Business for Digestate — is an EIC Pathfinder project that will explore how artificial intelligence and innovative bioprocesses can transform digestate, an undervalued by-product of anaerobic digestion, into high-value bioproducts.

Digestate is a complex organic by-product generated during anaerobic digestion, a biological process that converts part of the organic matter in waste into biogas. Although digestate is often considered a “waste of waste”, ReWOW aims to unlock its potential as a valuable feedstock for a new circular bioeconomy.

The project’s core technological solution is Modular Adaptive Fermentation (MAF), a next-generation bioprocess combining microbial bioconversion with AI-driven optimisation. ReWOW will design and validate a modular system to convert digestate into three model bioproducts: biosurfactants, aroma compounds and enhanced soil amendments. A dual-layer AI tool will support modelling, decision-making and real-time process control, helping the process adapt to digestate variability.

During the Barcelona meeting, the consortium reviewed the overall project strategy, the coordination and governance structure, the data management approach, and the communication, dissemination and exploitation plan. Partners also presented the objectives of each work package and discussed the first steps required to launch the research and innovation activities.

A dedicated working session was held to identify key exploitation results and messages, helping the consortium define how ReWOW’s future outputs may contribute to new value chains, business models and policy discussions around digestate valorisation and circular bioeconomy. 

“The kick-off meeting has played a crucial role in inspiring a shared vision of the project’s goals and energizing the consortium to embark on the initial phase of work. We are now focused on setting the scientific and technical foundations of ReWOW, while ensuring that our approach remains connected to its potential environmental, economic and societal impact,” said Oscar Martínez Avila, ReWOW coordinator and researcher at the Research Group on Bioconversion of Organic Residues and Advanced Materials (GICOM) of the Department of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering at UAB.

ReWOW brings together seven partners from Spain, Italy, Greece and Belgium: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Università degli Studi di Milano, WINGS ICT Solutions, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Fundació ENT, AERIS Tecnologías Ambientales and Universiteit Antwerpen. The Parc de Recerca UAB participates as an associated entity and leads the project’s communication, dissemination and exploitation activities.

ReWOW has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 101258534.