The first year of the EU-GREENER project “Integrated Systems for Environmental Effective Environmental Remediation” was recently closed with a very satisfactory participation of Tauw!
GREENER (InteGRated systems for Effective ENvironmEntal Remediation) is a EU-funded four-year multidisciplinary research innovation project involving 20 entities from 9 European countries as well as China. Its aim is to develop innovative, low-cost, efficient and sustainable solutions for effective soil/sediment and water bioremediation.
More concretely, by integrating several remediation strategies with innovative bio-electrochemical technologies, the project will effectively accelerate the remediation time of a range of organic and inorganic pollutants of high concern, while producing useful end-products, such as bioelectricity and/or harmless metabolites of industrial interest.
The project also enables knowledge transfer through the engagement of key actors, from academia and technology institutes (14 RTDs) to industry participants (4 SMEs and 2 large enterprise), including Tauw.
What have we done thus far? Among other activities, Tauw has provided contaminated soil, sediment, wastewater and groundwater samples from 10 different locations in Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany to our collaborators.
The GREENER partners are using these samples to develop various bio-based remediation technologies for contaminated soil and water environments that will be upscaled at a later stage.
In the coming months, Tauw will not only play a leading role in the upscaling of technologies for water remediation, it’s also expected that Tauw will lead pilot scale demonstration in the field of the most promising technologies for water treatment.
All in all, this effort would have not been possible without the support and cooperation of Tauw colleagues from Tauw Iberia (Barcelona), Tauw Belgium (Lokeren), Tauw bv (Deventer, the Netherlands) and Tauw Germany (Berlin, Moers, Regensburg and Munich). We’re happy, and also a quite proud, that we can depend on such an extensive, international network, and can furthermore really live up to the word “European” as a European environmental agency!
As we now enter the second term of the project, GREENER is, as most activities, challenged by the pandemic crisis. Most of the EU and Chinese partners are working at academic and research Institutions that have been closed for unknown time; they have no access to their laboratories and facilities to carry on with the experimental work.
Together with the EU-Commission, the GREENER partners are currently evaluating potential delays in project activities and the possibility to extend the corresponding delivery dates for the affected tasks.
Meanwhile, Tauw will finalize some activities that can be performed from home, and it goes without saying that we stay in touch with all of our partners to keep our spirits high.
If you want to hear more about this project or any other soil related matter, do not hesitate to contact Herwig De Wilde (GREENER project leader for Tauw Belgium) and/or Dr. Alfredo Pérez de Mora (GREENER general project leader for Tauw). Alternatively, you can check out the GREENER website and subscribe to the newsletter!
Email: herwig.dewilde@tauw.com
T: +32 (0)498 87 61 12
Email: alfredo.perezdemora@tauw.com
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