Biogas serves as a crucial solution in addressing global warming and reducing dependence on non-sustainable energy resources. Despite its environmental benefits, the production of biogas generates significant volumes of digestate as a by-product, primarily utilized as fertilizer in agricultural fields. However, this practice poses notable environmental challenges, including greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, and solid contamination. In response to these issues, the LIFE DIMITRA is dedicated to enhancing the sustainability of agricultural management practices. The focus is on valorizing biogas digestate to create higher-value bio-based fertilizers. LIFE DIMITRA aims to achieve a harmonious synergy of benefits, by pushing the boundaries of the current state-of-the-art in sustainable digestate valorization and management and promoting the diffusion and adoption of low-carbon technologies for biogas digestate. The outcomes include positive impacts on climate change mitigation, increased crop yields, and enhanced farm profitability. Through these advancements, LIFE DIMITRA strives to establish a more resilient and environmentally friendly approach to the entire biogas production cycle, aligning with broader goals of sustainable agriculture and resource management.

The LIFE DIMITRA concept will be materialised by implementing two demonstration sites in two European countries (Greece, Italy). The integrated technological solutions involve dewatering of raw AD digestate and managing the liquid and solid fraction of AD effluent to produce added value products that can be applied by farmers locally in a zero liquid and waste discharge approach. The proposed technologies shall be installed and applied at demonstration scale adjacent to existing agricultural waste AD plants. The capacity as well as the long-operating periods of the DEMO plants will ensure the demonstration of technological schemes in an industrial-relevant environment, thus validating their techno-economic viability. Experimental procedures have been developed for the both process trains i.e. DEMO1 and DEMO2 by NTUA and UNIVR respectively.

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