This week at IFAT Munich, the Eurecat technology centre is showcasing the cutting-edge solutions and technologies it has developed for smart use of resources such as water and raw materials in businesses coupled with innovations which help unlock circularity, climate resilience, zero pollution and ecosystem stewardship.
“Harnessing innovative environmental technologies will enable businesses to become more efficient, improve their environmental, social and economic impact and make headway in their decarbonisation and resilience to climate change,” says Miquel Rovira, director of Eurecat’s Sustainability Area.
Eurecat is at the IFAT Munich environmental technology trade fair with a booth in conjunction with the Catalan Water Partnership (CWP) cluster where it is displaying international circular economy solutions and projects.
“Against the backdrop of today’s water shortage, we need water reuse solutions which are competitive, sustainable and can deliver sufficient quality for a range of applications coupled with recovery of effluent constituents,” points out Caroline Sielfeld, a researcher in Eurecat’s Water, Air and Soil Unit.
Here Eurecat is presenting the European NextGen project in which it has demonstrated the viability of an innovative technological solution for resource use in the water industry. The initiative has evaluated, promoted and transferred circular economy solutions and systems to transform the European water sector.
It is also setting out the LifeZerosilibrine project, which is developing a process to address the environmental challenge of managing and treating the waste generated by the production of precipitated silica, enabling sodium sulphate and water to be recovered from the wastewater.
Plus for waste management, minimisation and recovery, “Eurecat is developing new technologies to recover and valorise the critical raw materials in waste and by-products and thus get the greatest value out of secondary and residual sources which are currently undervalued,” notes Luís Ángel Martínez, a researcher in Eurecat’s Waste, Energy and Environmental Impact Unit.
Hence at its stand the technology centre is showcasing the SENECA project which is investigating the potential of secondary mining and industry sources through processes for recovery and valorisation of critical materials for component manufacture in the battery and hydrogen industries.
The technology centre is also displaying the European Sea4Value project which is developing a new process for recovering high-value metals and minerals from effluent generated by seawater desalination plants. The idea is to convert them into a source of raw materials in line with the circular economy.
Sea4Value is working to turn some of the brine generated in the desalination process into the EU’s third largest source of valuable raw materials such as lithium or magnesium.
At IFAT Munich Eurecat is setting out solutions for converting waste into new value-added products to diversify industrial sectors. They include the one developed in the CYCLO-SLAG initiative for designing new products such as shot and zeolites from ladle furnace slag valorisation.
The technology will make using ladle slag profitable by turning it into an income-generating resource, cutting management costs, increasing the company’s competitiveness and lessening the environmental impact of steel production.
Likewise, the technology centre is also presenting groundbreaking technology validated in the Life Solieva project to recover and recycle compounds in the brine generated by the table olive production process, yielding high added-value products which can be used in the formulation of functional foods for the food industry.
