ATU Donegal awarded significant funding for cross-border project

ATU Donegal has been awarded significant funding from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for a collaborative project with Queens University Belfast and University of Limerick.

The Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine, has approved a total grant award of €1,028,684.45 for the project: “Valorisation of Digestate using Photocatalysis and Hydrodynamic Cavitation”.

The principal investigators in the study are Professor Vivek Ranade and Dr. Maurice Collins of UL, Professor Peter Robertson, QUB and Dr. Denis Mc Crudden, ATU Donegal.

The project brings together the consortia’s expertise and experience in hydrodynamic cavitation (UL), semiconductor photocatalysis (QUB), electrochemical sensors (ATU Donegal). Three industrial partners of anaerobic digestion (AD) plants, Green Generation Ltd, Biocore and Renewables United Ltd will provide mixed waste digestate.

The project aims to transform this digestate into value added products (biogas, struvite, hydrogen, and formic acid.

This project is a significant collaborative project that will allow the Irish AD industry to be more economically viable and competitive due to achieving digestate valorisation.