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  5. Combined clean biofuel production and phytoremediation solutions from contaminated lands worldwide - CERESiS (DIT.AD017.125)
Research project

Combined clean biofuel production and phytoremediation solutions from contaminated lands worldwide - CERESiS (DIT.AD017.125)

Thematic area

Engineering, ICT and technologies for energy and transportation

Project area

Tecnologie energetiche a basse emissioni (DIT.AD017)

Structure responsible for the research project

Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie per l'Energia e la Mobilità Sostenibili (STEMS)

Project manager

PAOLA GIUDICIANNI
Phone number: 0817682245
Email: paola.giudicianni@cnr.it

Abstract

Biofuels are one of few options for decarbonizing transport in the short to medium term. However, they are often criticised for indirect land use change (ILUC), which is critical due to lack of high quality agricultural land and increasing world population. At the same time, significant contaminated land areas remain unused.
CERESiS aims to provide a win-win sustainable solution to both issues by facilitating land decontamination through phytoremediation, growing energy crops to produce clean biofuels. In the longer term, this will increase the land available for agriculture, while producing non-ILUC biofuel.

Goals

Objective 1: Demonstrate the suitability and effectiveness of various conventional and novel species of energy crops for phytoremediation purposes in contaminated land, against a variety of the most common contaminants globally , considering both inorganic potentially toxic elements (including heavy metals) and organic compounds (including mineral oils, tars, pesticides and persistent organic compounds).
Objective 2: Demonstrate the potential of two novel thermochemical processes, i.e. Supercritical Water Gasification (SCWG) and Fast Pyrolysis (FP), for the production of biofuels and key biofuel precursors suitable for further upgrading, from contaminated biomass.
Objective 3: Provide decision support to stakeholders and policy makers in order to achieve optimal win-win solutions for site-specific land decontamination through phytoremediation while simultaneously producing clean liquid biofuels.

Start date of activity

01/11/2020

Keywords

biofuel, phytoremediation, contaminated lands

Last update: 02/12/2024