LIFE AgRemSO3il at Fruit Logistica 2019

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Fruit Logistica opened its doors once again this year at the exhibition grounds in Berlin between 6th and 8th February for what has become known as the most significant agricultural trade show in Europe.

The presence of Spain – and Murcia, of course – stood out and Fruit Logistica once again displayed its ability to draw in the crowds with the presence of representatives from all five continents.

The LIFE-AgRemSO3il project was represented at the trade show by IMIDA

Degradation experiments in controlled conditions

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With the aim of improving the ozonation method, IMIDA have carried out more experiments at laboratory scale in controlled conditions.

Ozone tests were developed in a glass container (volume 150 L) connected to the small-scale ozone generator. All assays were carried out using a pyrex glass vessels (110 mm long, 80 mm diameter) containing 100 g of two different soils spiked with a mixture of pesticides.

Ozonation treatment was applied to both soils at a fixed ozone concentration. A control experiment was also conducted using soil not exposed to ozonation.

LIFE-AgRemSO3il technical meeting

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A technical meeting between some of the LIFE-AgRemSO3il beneficiaries – IMIDA, CEBAS-CSIC and NOVAGRIC – was held on 10th January.

During the meeting, the results of tests carried out during the summer on IMIDA facilities (Murcia) were discussed and decisions on the study of new materials, design of the next experiments and improvements to the equipment were taken.

LIFE-AgRemSO3il at LIFE Drainuse Final Conference

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IMIDA was invited to take part in the Final conference of the project LIFE-DRAINUSE (LIFE14 ENV/ES/000538) held at the University of Murcia Scientific Park on 29th November.

This project has demonstrated, through the design, construction and setting up of a complete recirculation pilot system, the technological possibility of re-using drainage in Euro-Mediterranean regions.

Fulgencio Contreras López (Head of the Office of Technology Transfer) participated with the presentation “IMIDA’s recent projects: LIFE-Aquemfree and LIFE- AgRemSO3il”.

LIFE AgRemSO3il Kick-off meeting with the Contracting Authority

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On November 6th and 7th, 2018 two of the AgRemSO3il partners attended the kick-off meeting for ENV and GIE LIFE17 projects with the Contracting Authority representatives in Brussels, Belgium. The two partners mentioned previously, IMIDA and IDC, were represented by Isabel Garrido and Rodrigo Arandi-Klee respectively, who are responsible of the technical, administrative and financial management.

 

The purpose of this kick-off meeting was to provide with relevant policy topics, the LIFE programme rules, the role of the external monitoring team -NEEMO- in the projects’ implementation, and communication and dissemination matters.

 

IMIDA and IDC made a short presentation regarding the background, objectives, impacts, policy implication and technology transfer approach of AgRemSO3il.

Preliminary experiments with AgRemSO3il small prototype

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On August 2018, soil decontamination tests began on a greenhouse located in IMIDA facilities, Murcia.

In this initial stage, several treatments were conducted in two different soils contaminated with pesticides in order to evaluate and define the optimal conditions for the remediation technologies involved in the project: ozonation and ozonation in combination with solarization.

The ozone was generated by a small-scale prototype designed and manufactured by NOVAGRIC.

The experiment will be carried out during the summer season (August-October). The project’s team will also assess the influence of these technologies on the nematode population and the soil microbiota. In addition, the efficiency of the small prototype design will be checked and this information will be used in the engineering and design of the big-scale prototype.

CSIC is evaluating the influence of ozone in the soil microbial quality

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CSIC is using different approaches to evaluate the influence of ozone (O3) in the soil microbial quality.

For example, the biomass of the soil microbial communities is analyzed through the extraction and quantification of fatty acids from soil by gas cromatography (Pictures 1). In addition, the activity of microbial communities is measured thorugh different soil enzyme activities, such, urease, alkaline phosphatase and β-glucosidase (Picture 2), which are related to the cycles of nitrogen (N), phosphous (P) and carbon (C) in terrestrial ecosystems, respectively.

The results indicate that ozone may impact in the biomass of the soil microbial community, but also in the activity of soil enzymes. Ozone also enhanced the decomposition of soil organic matter and, hence, increased the content of water-soluble C and N fractions. In some cases, the greater availability of water-soluble compounds in treated samples can be responsible of the reduced enzyme activity by negative feedback mechanisms.

        

Picture 1. Process of extraction and separation of fatty acids from soil (left panel) and gas gromatograh utilized for measuring microbial fatty acids (right panel).

 

 

Picture 2. Examples of some soil samples utilized for analyses in AgRemSO3il (left panel) and colorimetric reaction for measuring soil phosphatase activity (right panel).

LIFE AgRemSO3il Kick-off meeting with the Consortium

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On July 3rd, 2018 the AgRemSO3il consortium, IMIDA, CSIC, NOVAGRIC and IDC, gathered together in the IMIDA facilities in Murcia, Spain.  

The purpose of this kick-off meeting was to have the first face-to-face meeting and to speak about the general scope of the project, the consortium’s structure, the role of each partner in each action of the project and the administrative and financial management procedure to be followed for the entire duration of the project.