PROMISCES

Development of technologies to remove pollutants from soils, sediments, surface- and groundwater, that can be harmful to human health.

The PROMISCES project develops, tests and demonstrates in the field, under real-life conditions, key technologies and innovations to monitor, prevent and remediate industrial persistent and mobile and potentially toxic pollutants in the soil-sediment-water system.

At this sense, PROMISCES project identifies how industrial pollution prevents the deployment of the circular economy (CE) in the EU and which strategies help overcome key bottlenecks to deliver the ambitions of the European Green Deal and Circular Economy Action Plan. PROMISCES considers specific CE routes including semi-closed water cycles for drinking water supply at urban and catchment scale; wastewater reuse for irrigation in agriculture; nutrient recovery from sewage sludge; material recovery from dredged sediment and land remediation for safe reuse in urban areas.

To reach this goal, PROMISCES carries out the following actions:

• Development of new analytical methods and toxicological tools to provide data on persistent, mobile (PM) substances (i.e. PFAS and other industrial chemicals) in complex environmental matrices.
• Exploration of sources and environmental pathways of PM substances.
• Assessment of fate and transport pathways within the different CE routes and evaluation of the impacts of corrective measures
• Improvement of the assessment and management of human health risks from drinking water and agricultural products.
• Development and demonstration of cost-efficient and sustainable technologies for the removal of PM substances from different media.
• Translation of PROMISCES results into guidance for efficient and feasible management of PM substances and recommendations for the implementation of relevant EU policy strategies and directives.
• Integration of the results into a decision support framework which considers resource recovery and water reuse, as well as supports chemical management decisions with regards to stakeholders and societal demands, PM chemical properties, technical solutions to prevent, mitigate and remediate industrial pollution and the whole life cycle of current and future chemicals.

Eurecat participates in the project through the Water, Air and Soil Unit (WAS) and the Applied Artificial Intelligence Unit, leading two cases studies of the project, located in Catalonia, and coordinating some of the tasks related to research and development. The project, coordinated by the French Geological Survey (BRGM), counts with the participation of 27 partners from 9 European countries.