ENVIRONMENT

The project aims to utilize food waste, plastics, and paper (resulting from the daily activities of the Hellenic Army (HA)) and convert them through hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) into bio-oil, which has similar characteristics to petroleum and is upgraded into liquid fuels. HTL is an ideal utilization solution compared to other technologies (pyrolysis), leveraging water (up to 80% in the feedstock) as a powerful medium for breaking down organics into hydrocarbons and yielding high-quality bio-oil.

The application of Circular Economy principles to the HA and industry (EKO) data enhances their collaboration with new terms of lower-cost fuel production – zero raw material cost (waste), 90% energy efficiency, and emissions cost (CO2 emissions reduction) – yielding jointly reaped profits. The HA has 100,000 personnel, whose waste (combined with that of urban areas around HA units and their sewage) yields at least 45,000 tons of bio-oil, equivalent to 50,000,000 liters of fuel annually, resulting in an annual reduction in fuel purchase costs of €4-7,000,000. The project also contributes to reducing landfill flows and enhancing the HA's energy autonomy (a matter of National Security).

The project combines the waste collection-utilization system implementation infrastructure and safety and environmental expertise of the Hellenic Army Academy (SSE), with the process development/optimization infrastructure and expertise of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and the quality control and fuel formulation infrastructure of EKO (Helleniq Energy Group).