Environmental awareness “is a driving force for recovery across all economic sectors and for large and small and medium-sized enterprises alike,” says Miquel Rovira, director of the Eurecat technology centre’s Sustainability Division. It has “significant potential for rolling out the circular economy in segments such as agri-food, chemicals, transport, construction and equipment manufacturing.”
With this in mind, this week at the EU Green Week virtual fair ‘Zero pollution for healthier people and planet’ Eurecat is showcasing the European projects it is conducting in sustainability, decarbonisation, waste management and recovery and other areas to further the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Green Deal.
“Hardwiring disruptive sustainability and circularity technologies into a range of production sectors is a key factor in generating a constructive impact for society and the planet,” argues Miquel Rovira.
Hence the technology centre is exhibiting projects at its virtual booth including Life iBATHWATER which is designed to test a new integrated management system for the urban sewage network. It will include a package of solutions for controlling and lessening the impact of untreated wastewater discharges during storm events.
In the chemical industry Eurecat is coordinating the European Life Rewatch project which is demonstrating on a pilot scale a new system for treating wastewater from the petrochemical industry in one of DOW Chemical Ibérica’s production plants in Tarragona. The system makes it possible to obtain high-quality reclaimed water which can be reused in the plant’s industrial operations.
At the EU Green Week fair Eurecat will also present the European SunCoChem project coordinated by the technology centre in the “Towards Zero Pollution in the Production of Green Fuels and Chemicals“ webinar to be held from 10 am to 12.30 pm on 4 June. Coming under the sustainable chemistry concept, SunCoChem “is to develop a reactor to manufacture chemicals using renewable energies tapping carbon dioxide recovered from the chemical industry with the help of solar power,” says Ricard Garcia Valls, the director of the Chemical Technology Unit at Eurecat.
Likewise, BiZeolCat seeks to find new catalysts and new processes to make the oil refining industry more environmentally and economically sustainable. The project shares the vision of an innovative and sustainable economy anchored in circular economy principles such as using resources efficiently.
Meanwhile the Life Solieva project aims to ramp up resource use efficiency in the table olive production process and lessen the industry’s environmental impact. It helps to roll out the European Commission’s circular economy strategy by recovering a large percentage of water, reagents and organic compounds such as polyphenols.
