A novel and innovative approach integrating technologies to quantify the role of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in rainwater

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can directly influence in the physio-chemical characteristics of rainwater, since VOC dissolve into rain drops. This process can have important implications at ecosystem scale, since these chemically altered raindrops can alter soil and freshwater acidity, as well as the nutrient content, consequently affecting forest and crop productivity, surface water chemical composition and biodiversity loss. Therefore, I propose a novel and innovative approach integrating technologies to quantify the role of VOCs in rainwater. This project is aimed to design and construct an automatic rainwater VOC sampler prototype to be deployed for 1 year at a Mediterranean forest. Laboratory plant and soil experiments will also be performed to explore the effects of chemically modified rainwater in the ecosystems at the process level. At last, an integrated assessment and review will be performed to assess the impacts of VOCs in rainwater at a landscape and regional level.
Funded by: La Caixa Foundation Junior Leader Retaining fellowship

Start Date: 01/11/2021 – End Date: 30/11/2024

Project Leader: Ana María Yáñez Serrano

Funding: National Project

Research Infrastructures Services Reinforcing Air Quality Monitoring Capacities in European Urban & Industrial AreaS

The project aims to demonstrate how service tools from atmospheric research infrastructures can be adapted and enhanced to better address the challenges and societal needs concerning air quality in European cities and industrial hotspots. RI-URBANS responds to urgent needs to substantially reduce air pollution across the European Union by providing enhanced air quality observations in support of advanced air quality policy assessment.

We develop and enhance synergies between Air Quality Monitoring Networks (AQMNs) and research infrastructures in the atmospheric domain and combine advanced scientific knowledge and innovative technologies to develop pilot service tools. These will enhance the AQMNs capacity to evaluate, predict and support policies for abating urban air pollution. RI-URBANS deploys tools and information systems in the hands of citizens and communities to support decision-making by AQ managers and regulators. The focus is on ambient nanoparticles and atmospheric particulate matter, their sizes, constituents, source contributions, and gaseous precursors. RI-URBANS will evaluate novel air quality parameters, source contributions, and their associated health effects to demonstrate the European added value of implementing such service tools.

Funded by the European Commission’s call “European Research Infrastructures capacities and services to address European Green Deal challenges (LC-GD-9-1-2020)”

Start Date: 01/10/2021 – End Date: 30/09/2025

Project Leader: Xavier Querol Carceller

Researchers: Teresa Moreno Pérez , Fulvio Amato , Andrés Alastuey Urós , Angeliki Karanasiou , María Cruz Minguillón , Mar Viana Rodríguez , Marco Pandolfi , Joan Grimalt Obrador , Barend L. van Drooge

Funding: European Project

Nature-based solutions to reduce antibiotics, pathogens, and antimicrobial resistance in aquatic ecosystems

An array of nature-based solutions including conventional and high-end constructed wetlands, river re-naturalization, and restoration of wetlands will cover the continuum from urban sources to coastal biota in estuaries. We propose a comprehensive quantification of the fate of antibiotics, pathogens, and antimicrobial resistance in these systems together with ecotoxicological and human health assessments. Nature-based solutions performance will be analyzed using multivariate modeling techniques to identify parameters with the greatest empirical influence on the attenuation of targeted pollutants.

Start Date: 01/09/2021 – End Date: 30/08/2024

Project Leader: Víctor Matamoros Mercadal

Researchers: Josep Maria Bayona Termens , Mònica Escolà Casas , Enric Vázquez Suñé

Funding: European Project

https://www.jpiamr.eu/projects/nature/

New generation of drugs protecting against neurotoxic industrial chemicals

Human brain is a great target for chemical terrorism, so NATO nations should be prepared to respond effectively to terrorist threats involving neurotoxic industrial chemicals (neuroTICs). The main objective of this project is to assess the therapeutic potential of AD4 and thioredoxin-mimetic peptides, blood-brain barrier permeable drugs targeting oxidative stress, apoptosis and inflammation, on acute neurotoxic syndromes induced by three common TICs (organophosphorus compounds, acrylamide, organic mercury). Moreover, specific combinations of drugs derived from the analysis of potential therapeutic targets for each toxidrome will be also tested.

This project is supported by: The NATO Science for Peace and Security programme

Start Date: 03/06/2021 – End Date: 02/06/2024

Project Leader: Demetrio Raldúa Pérez

Researchers: Melissa Faria , Juliette Bedrossiantz , Carlos Barata Martí , Benjamí Piña Capó

Funding: International Project

https://neurotics-project-nato.com/

Nanoparticle Emissions from the Transport Sector: Health and Policy Impacts

Air pollution in European cities is still threatening human health, even though EU emission directives have been sharpened over the last 25 years. Adverse health effects of airborne particles are strongly linked to their size. A major fraction of outdoor ultrafine particles is traffic generated from road, rail, air, and sea transportation. The story that nPETS aims to communicate is the life of the sub 100 nm emissions from its creation to its potential path to human beings and animals. The nPETS consortium aims to improve the knowledge of transport generated exhaust and non-exhaust nanoparticle emissions and their impacts on health and new public policies.
It aims to monitor and sample with state-of-the-art particle instruments the sub 100 nm transport generated emissions from shipping, road, rail, and aviation both in field and controlled laboratory environments. Both aged and fresh aerosols will be considered, including primary and secondary volatile and non-volatile particles. Characterising the emissions will be done from shipping, road, rail, and aviation by linking their sizes, chemical compositions, and morphologies to its specific emission sources such as engines, brakes, clutches, and tyres to increase the understanding of the mechanisms behind adverse risks posed by different types and sources of the identified sub 100 nm particles. The effects of nanoparticles from various transport modes and fuels, as well as specific emission sources, will be compared with a focus on markers of relevance for carcinogenesis and inflammation. Living cells will be exposed to collected and real-world primary and aged aerosols as well as primary and aged aerosols generated in the laboratory.
Furthermore, it also aims to evaluate the possible future impact of new policies in this area on public health and linking the impacts with specific emission sources. This should lead to an understanding and quantification of the risks posed by different types and sources.

Start Date: 01/06/2021 – End Date: 31/05/2024

Researchers: Fulvio Amato , Benjamí Piña Capó , José Portugal Minguela , Barend L. van Drooge , Xavier Querol Carceller , Andrés Alastuey Urós , Teresa Moreno Pérez

Funding: European Project

https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/954377/es

Reducing Emission Modelling uncertaintY

REMY project, through a detailed quantitative modelling analysis in three EU critical areas (Po Valley -IT, Catalonia - E, Southern Poland - PL), investigates the impact of uncertainty in pollutants emission and air dispersion models that could negatively affect air quality plan, both on the regional and the local scale, leading to the identification of ineffective emission abatement strategies.

Entidad financiadora: European Commission (LIFE program)

Start Date: 01/05/2021 – End Date: 30/04/2024

Project Leader: Fulvio Amato

Researchers: Federica Ippolito , Teresa Moreno Pérez , Aurelio Tobías Garces , Marco Pandolfi

Funding: European Project

https://liferemy.eu/

MAGO is the new 3-year PRIMA-funded project that aims at developing Mediterranean wAter management solutions for a sustainable aGriculture supplied by an Online collaborative platform. The project kicked off on the 1st of May, 2021. The overarching objective of the project is to make this connection between research results and real market needs and end-user demands, in the field of food security and water management in the Mediterranean region, especially focusing on the challenge of climate change. MAGO will develop WEMED, a collaborative platform with WEb applications for agriculture in the MEDiterranean.

It will introduce novel participatory processes for better water and innovation governance, enhance monitoring and modelling for better water use efficiency and soil conservation, and improve planning and operation of wastewater reuse systems in agriculture.

Funded by EC, PRIMA (Horizon 2020)

Start Date: 01/04/2021 – End Date: 31/03/2024

Project Leader: Miren López de Alda Villaizán

Funding: European Project

https://www.mago-prima.eu/

European training network on control prediction and learning in mixing processes

The CoPeRMix network brings together a collection of experts at the European scale from academia and industry, who have all adopted new angles of attack to the problem of mixing according to their needs and fields of application, in order to foster the emergence of a unified viewpoint, through intensive collaboration between different schools of thought and methods. This effort builds up on existing collaborations between several participants, and lectures or courses delivered by some of us in various university curricula in their own institution, and abroad. More precisely, this training network is the emanation of the “Mixing Days” organized by the consortium on a yearly basis (Marseille in 2016, Rennes in 2017, Barcelona in 2018 and Brussels in 2019), which have been the opportunity to conceive and share a new methodology: the lamellar description of mixing.
It consists in viewing a mixture as a set of elongated lamellae and sheets and understanding how they are stretched and dispersed by the stirring flow. This first step provides the necessary information to address the stirring/molecular diffusion coupling, leading to the complete statistical description of the mixing process i.e. the full concentration distribution. This disruptive vision has prompted new numerical (Diffusive Strip Method) and experimental methods. They offer an unprecedented opportunity of accurately describe Stirring protocols which is the ground to understanding and model- ling Mixing and its Impact in a diversity of fields. This lamellar description of mixing provides a consistent and invertible theoretical framework giving us also the opportunity to Learn from mixed scalar fields.

Very promising outcomes are expected as the CoPerMix programme unites leading academic and industrial partners with a broad expertise in the fundamentals and applications of mixing in a very wide range of fields.

Start Date: 01/01/2021 – End Date: 31/12/2025

Project Leader: Marco Dentz , Juan José Hidalgo González

Funding: European Project

https://www.copermix-itn.eu/

The objectives of this project are:
Evaluate exposure during pregnancy to poly- and perfluorinated substances (PFASs) in drinking water.
Estimate the contribution of drinking water to the total exposure burden.
Estimate the association with neurodevelopment at 6 months in the framework of the BISC project (Barcelona Life Study Cohort).
ISGlobal, ASPB, IDAEA-CSIC

Start Date: 01/01/2021 – End Date: 31/12/2023

Project Leader: Cintia Flores Rubio

Funding: National Project

RECOPPs: REcovery of Added-Value Raw Materials from Copper Primary Production

RECOPPs (REcovery of Added-Value Raw Materials from Copper Primary Production) aims to transition the environmentally and economically sustainable recovery of added-value raw materials Bismuth (Bi) and Antimony (Sb) and removal and inertisation of Arsenic (As) from the residues and by-products generated during the pyrometallurgical production of Copper (Cu), based on RECOPP fast track proven technologies (TRL 5), to a TRL of 7(pilot scale) to validate this technological solution at such operational environment.
Funded by: EIT RawMaterials Horizon Europe

Start Date: 01/01/2021 – End Date: 31/03/2024

Project Leader: Patricia Córdoba Sola

Researchers: Samanta Rojas Castro

Funding: European Project

https://recopps.com/