This BIP is given within the context of the course 746G75 Advancing Sustainable Futures: Integrating Biogas Production into Society for a Greener Transition.
The course examines how anaerobic digestion transforms organic waste into biogas and digestate – two valuable resources for energy and agriculture. You will gain insight into the technical, environmental, and societal challenges affecting the efficiency and adoption of biogas production. Emphasising interdisciplinary approaches, the course encourages students from diverse backgrounds to collaborate in solving real-world problems.
The course introduces the principles of anaerobic digestion and its applications for producing biogas and digestate. You will investigate the links between biotechnology, environmental policy, and biorefinery systems, as well as analyse how these technologies can be integrated into societal structures to promote sustainability.
At the heart of the course is a group-based project where students from diverse backgrounds collaborate to solve a real-world challenge presented by a societal stakeholder, such as a company, research initiative, or government agency. Through this challenge, you will develop skills in project management, communication, and critical thinking.
In this iteration of the course the external partner that provided the real-life problem is Biototal and the challenge is called Building cities of the future: harnessing new urban bioresources.
The challenge
Our society is teeming with bioresources, such as various types of biomasses and organic waste, that often go underutilized. This challenge invites you to explore how we can turn these resources into high-quality biofertilizers while addressing one big obstacle: pollutants.
Anaerobic digestion is a powerful process for producing biogas and digestate, but the presence of PFAs in the digestate has raised concerns. These substances can limit the use of digestate as biofertilizer, leading to reduced soil health and circularity. Your challenge will be to examine the current landscape, identify barriers, and propose smart strategies to make digestate safer and more effective for biofertilizer production. More specifically, you will identify ways of dealing with digestate with relatively high amounts of PFAs, define strategies to minimize its presence in the biofertilizer, and propose concrete solutions for their presence in digestate.
Collaborate with industry experts from Biototal, engage in interdisciplinary research, and present your innovative solutions to stakeholders. This challenge-based learning experience promises to be both intellectually stimulating and practically impactful, driving sustainable development and helping the agriculture sector transition to a sustainable future.
The challenge includes a face-to-face (F2F) week at Linköping University (LiU) in Sweden. During the F2F week, you will get the opportunity to engage with some of the most advanced biogas and biofertilizer production systems in the world and with researchers in Biogas, biofertilizer and PFAs. You will interact directly with the challenge provider, visit state-of-the art biogas research facilities, and get a tour of a full-scale biogas plant at Tekniska Verken AB in Linköping.
Join us and be part of the solution!
Preliminary schedule
The course will be given in blended mode, with most of the activities online and a mandatory face-to-face (F2F) week at Valla campus, Linköping from 09 to 13 March 2026. Please contact the Erasmus coordinator at your home university to secure Erasmus funding for the F2F week as soon as possible. See the preliminary schedule via the link below. Please note that changes may occur.
Building cities of the future: harnessing new urban bioresources (Will be updated shortly, please see correect dates at the top of the page)