From mushroom compost to low-cost biopesticides: the BIOrescue recipe

09.06.2017

On 8 June 2017, Inés del Campo, Senior Research & Development Engineer at CENER and coordinator of the BIOrescue project, presented the innovative biorefinery process currently developed within BIOrescue, at the second Biopesticides Europe Conference in Madrid, Spain. This was the opportunity to explain to key industry stakeholders from the biopesticides industry how this new biorefinery concept will enable to produce a biodegradable pesticide for insect pest control from spent mushroom compost.

With the experience gathered by CENER in the regional project BIOPEST, funded by the Navarra Government, BIOrescue project partners will use the fraction of pretreated mushroom compost enriched in soluble sugars obtained after enzymatic hydrolysis to produce a biopesticide through a fermentation process using bacteria. Afterwards, the new biopesticide will also be encapsulated in nanocarriers produced with biodegradable soluble-lignin obtained after the mushroom compost pretreatment process. This will enable to release biopesticides gradually and in small amounts.

To learn more about the technical process for biopesticide production developed within BIOrescue, you can click here to download Inés del Campo presentation..