\ Innovazione \ POSIDON PCP: successful experimentation with two innovative solutions for decontamination of polluted industrial areas

The European project POSIDON PCP (POlluted SIte DecontaminatiON Pre-Commercial Procurement) has led to development and testing of two new technologies for soil decontamination in polluted disused industrial areas. The results of experiments in the final phase of the competitive procedure, aimed at the procurement of research and development services, were presented during the final project event on 9 October in Bilbao, Spain.

POSIDON, financed by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme and coordinated by Area Science Park, has the goal of driving development of new solutions currently unavailable on the market, from the public demand side.

The project gathers five European procurers, owners and/or managers of polluted sites, with the common need to identify new soil-treatment technology (potentially also for groundwater treatment), preferably in situ, capable of decontaminating heterogeneous anthropic soils on brownfields with a mixture of industrial waste (such as soils polluted by petroleum hydrocarbons and heavy metals) and soils consisting of clays and sands, highly polluted by petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs and PAHs) and heavy metals (arsenic and lead).

During the project, various suppliers (mixed research/enterprise consortiums) were invited to develop innovative solutions, in the context of a competition procedure. This included all steps from concept and design of new solutions through to prototyping, laboratory validation and original development of two prototypes for parallel testing in the field on two different sites in Trieste, Italy and Bilbao, Spain.

The two technologies that reached the field experiment and comparison phase were those of the consortiums headed by companies TESECO BONIFICHE and HPC Italia.

TESECO has developed the technology Soil-Omic® which uses integrated biological and chemical-physical processes aimed to decontaminate soils and groundwater from organic and inorganic pollutants, with biological formulations based on the integration of metagenomics and environmental engineering. The solution uses BIOflushing®, an in-situ decontamination technology that uses specialised hydraulic systems for bio-stimulation, bio-amplification and chemical washing of saturated and unsaturated soils. The results have confirmed the efficacy of the process and the system dedicated to breaking down oil and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, as well as removing heavy metals from saturated and unsaturated soils. Specifically, in Bilbao, in around five months of operation of the system, a significant reduction in average inorganic contamination of unsaturated soil* was recorded, as well as in organic contamination**. Soil-Omic® is under commercialisation and will go to market at the end of 2023.

Meanwhile, HPC ITALIA in cooperation with the Politecnico di Milano University, has developed the “Erase” (ElectRode-Aided Soil rEmediation) solution, a flexible, modular, in-situ platform that involves positioning of electrodes to reduce contamination both with organic and inorganic pollutants, through the transport inducted by the electrical field of the soil, in addition to chemical and biological treatment actions through injection of chemical products and nutrients. The modular nature of the technology enables use on contaminated water sources of various sizes and depths. The solution is still in the development phase, but Phase 3 testing has already provided evidence of an increase in the mobility of metals, with a reduction in the concentration of some of these in the soil, while monitoring data has also confirmed a decrease in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and hydrocarbons.

*Reduction in average inorganic contamination of unsaturated soil: Arsenic -97%, Cadmium -82%, Chromium -31%, Nickel -56%, Lead -95%, Copper -96% and Zinc -94%.

**Reduction in organic contamination: Hydrocarbons (TPH) -85%, Dibenzo(a.h)anthracene -97%, Benzo(a)pyrene -97%, Indeno(1.2. 3-cd)pyrene -97%, Pyrene -97%, Benzo(a)anthracene -99%, Chrysene -97%, Benzo(b)fluoranthene -99%, Benzo(k)fluoranthene -96% and Sum PAH (EPA 16) -97%.

The POSIDON PCP project involves Area Science Park (coordinator and technical project partner), the group of five managers of polluted sites to be decontaminated: Port Network Authority of the Eastern Adriatic (Lead procurer of the joint pre-commercial contract) (IT), Bilbao City Council (ES) SpaQue (BE), CEA – Vitoria Gasteiz City Council (ES) and Baja do Tejo (PT), joined by the technical partners: Sara Bedin, expert in innovation contracts and pre-commercial procurement (IT); TECNALIA, Basque research centre (ES); IHOBE, Basque environment agency (ES) and MAS communications manager (ES).

POSIDON has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, in the context of Grant Agreement No. 776838. The information contained in this press release reflects the authors’ views. The European Research Executive Agency (REA) is not responsible for any use made of the information contained herein.