The Sorigué industrial complex in La Plana del Corb, Lleida, was the setting for a workshop called “Towards Sustainable Livestock Farming,” attended by about twenty researchers from the BETA Technological Centre of the University of Vic working on projects related to bio-waste utilization.  

Sorigué’s Innovation Department led the event, spotlighting the success of the Noguera Renovables project.  

Located in Vallfogona de Balaguer (Lleida), Noguera Renovables is a collaboration between Sorigué, Axpo Iberia, and Torre Santamaría that generates biomethane from livestock manure. Sorigué applies its extensive expertise in processing sludge from wastewater treatment plants to convert around 73,000 tons of manure yearly into biogas, which is purified into high-quality biomethane.  

BETA researchers visiting Sorigué toured the Noguera Renovables facilities, which contribute approximately 26 GWh/year to the gas grid, and had the chance to discuss its operations.  

Bio-waste projects  

Workshop attendees exchanged insights on their various ongoing projects, all aligned with the circular economy.  

Ana Robles, from the Novafert project, outlined this European initiative involving nine partners to catalogue products and technologies for organic, organomineral, and mineral-based fertilizers, aiming to reduce dependence on mineral fertilizers.  

Isabella De Bona Muñoz presented the Go Digeva project, which tests vacuum evaporation technology to process digestate, producing nutrient-rich concentrates and high-quality water.  

As digestate is the liquid residue from anaerobic digestion of bioresidues, Noguera Renovables offers an ideal environment for Go Digeva researchers to test their work in real industrial conditions. 

Ignacio García-Berro introduced the HarvRESt project, in which Sorigué participates, focusing on integrating biogas plants into agriculture. Using Noguera Renovables’ biogas production from its four digesters as a model, researchers aim to create a similar system with agricultural bioresidues, like those from cereal farms, and assess the fertilizing potential of nutrients recovered from digestate.  

Driving decarbonization  

Noguera Renovables’ facilities currently support two pilot plants for the undertaking of Sorigué’s Innovation Department research.  

The first of these, VAL2H2, utilizes pruning waste from park and garden maintenance to produce hydrogen, crucial for decarbonization as it powers heavy transport sectors like trucks, planes, and ships requiring high energy.  

The second, Despoliplast, led by Sorigué, operates a pilot plant at Noguera Renovables. In this case, the aim is to validate catalytic depolymerization technology, transforming non-recyclable plastic waste into energy resources. Researchers work with car scrap parts and reverse osmosis membranes used in water desalination.  

For Sorigué, R&D+i projects provide new knowledge, materials, and technologies that can be applied to its business areas while promoting much cleaner and more sustainable environmental processes.