Ten partners from five European countries, coordinated by IIT in Turin. A new European project is born to innovate the industrial sector and contribute to the fight against climate change.
Turin 07/04/2025 – A new step towards a circular and sustainable economy comes with the GoodByO project, coordinated by the Italian Institute Technology (IIT) and funded by the European Union through the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE-JU) program. The project aims to develop a next-generation biorefinery that transforms agro-food waste, biogenic CO₂, and industrial wastewater into sustainable products, addressing the growing need to reduce the environmental impact of the manufacturing industry.
Under the leadership of Fabrizio Pirri, head of IIT’s Turin-based Center for Sustainable Future Technologies, and researcher Valeria Agostino, GoodByO seeks to revolutionize industrial processes.
“The GoodByO approach will help Europe achieve its circular bioeconomy goals, fostering more efficient industrial development”, Valeria Agostino stated. GoodByO aims to introduce a circular approach that generates the molecules required by green chemistry from biomass and production chain waste. “This is possible thanks to microorganisms and their extraordinary metabolic diversity.”, Agostino continues. “They can feed on a wide variety of carbon sources, including CO₂, and can be specifically trained to produce what we need.”.
Over the next three years, GoodByO will develop and validate four innovative microbial factories at pilot scale, leveraging ChainCraft biorefinery side-streams as feedstocks. These gaseous and liquid waste streams will be used to produce bio-octanoic acid, bio-hexanol, carotenoids, bio-fertilizers, and microbial proteins. These products have applications in industries such as cosmetics, nutraceuticals, food, agriculture, and animal husbandry. The goal is to demonstrate the long-term stability of these bioprocesses on a pilot scale, collecting useful data for industrial-scale expansion.
As part of the energy transition, GoodByO is also developing a renewable energy-based system to efficiently store and use energy, reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Another key objective is to make “bio” products competitive in the market, challenging petroleum- and palm oil-derived products and encouraging companies to adopt more sustainable solutions.
Officially launched in Turin, GoodByO brings together ten partners from five European countries. Italian partners include the National Research Council (CNR), Politecnico di Torino, and CIB-Consorzio Italiano Biogas. Other collaborators include the Dutch company ChainCraft, Greece’s Centre For Renewable Energy Sources And Saving (CRES) and Brite Solar, Austria’s Technische Universität of Wien and Krajete GmbH, and Masarykova Univerzita in Brno, Czech Republic.
The GoodByO project represents not only a technological innovation but also a significant opportunity for the European manufacturing industry to reduce its environmental impact, making a concrete contribution to the fight against climate change.
