MicroNOD _ Avecom

The MicroNOD project converts industrial by-products into high-quality organic fertilizer.

MicroNOD stands for Microbial Nutritients On Demand and is a project that aims to establish a sustainable value chain that converts nutrients from industrial by-products into high-quality organic fertilizer. That process has a low carbon footprint and the fertilizer provides multiple ecosystem services.

Fertilizers from animal products have a large ecological footprint and artificial fertilizers are not good for the environment. Therefore, the MicroNOD project aims to provide a solution that reuses and upgrades by-products from industry. Moreover, only a limited amount of water and energy is consumed during that process.

The processing of the microbiota into organic fertilizer in low-impact plant cultivation substrates focuses on maximizing the nutrient release according to the needs of the plants. MicroNOD innovates systematically, through strong interaction with social actors. It aims to stimulate the demand side and public acceptance of the recovered bioproduct. In addition, the project aims to create economic added value for all business activities throughout the innovative value chain, establish a quality assurance system, comply with product legislation and finally quantify sustainability.

Together with Avecom and other partners, the University of Antwerp, University of Ghent and Greenyard collaborated on the research that ran from 2015 to 2017. The main funding of the research was provided by IWT / VLAIO, MIP and ICON.