The BIo-energy Smart Source System (BISSS) project, implemented under the National Operational
Programme for Research and Competitiveness 2007-2013 co-financing of the Ministry of Education,
University and Research has seen protagonist ENEA through the use of technology to innovative membrane
processes for the treatment of wastewater from the olive growing sector, in wine and milk products.
In particular the equipment designed by ENEA, have allowed to treat, several tonnes of the
waste water mills coming from different cultivars present in Puglia (Coratina, Leccino, Ogliarola), clarified
in Microfiltration (MF), to obtain a fraction of permeate limpid, containing all the soluble phenolic
components present in olive pulp and a concentrated fraction containing all the components in suspension
intended for the production of biogas. The process has provided a series of successive steps
to MF as Ultrafiltration (UF) able to separate the protein and colloidal substances present in the concentrate,
to get after separation Nanofiltration (NF) to a pool phenolic discriminated between molecules
to molecular weight greater than 300-500 kD (oleuropein, verbascoside, oleocantale, elenolic
acid) and molecules with a lower molecular weight as the more simple phenols (tyrosol, caffeic acid,
hydroxytyrosol)