The expected results per project pillar are listed below:
To stimulate the selected high-yielding energy crops and to increase their phytoremediation capacity using two parallel ways: a) to increase their biomass production and/or b) to increase their inorganic bioaccumulation capacity and/or to increase their biodegradation ability of organic pollutants. Apart from these, a number of environmental services will be stimulated by cultivating energy crops on polluted sites resulting in mitigation of the environmental and health risks arising from these soils via (a) preventing erosion through vegetation cover, (b) reducing leaching, and (c) immobilizing the contaminants. In addition, soil carbon sequestration and organic matter will increase, soil biodiversity will be promoted and soil structure will be protected. Last but not least, the exposure root of humans to pollutants will be reduced with beneficial effects on their health and well-being. By producing feedstock from unexploited contaminated lands will also increase the income for local farmers and population, will create new jobs, new knowledge and new skills for young people and women and will stimulate the development of innovative entrepreneurship.
To produce clean liquid biofuels by following two conversion routes: The first conversion route aims to investigate the removal of certain metal(loid)s in the pretreatment technologies and to study the performance of the less-contaminated fuels in the EFG at laboratory- and pilot-scale with a focus on the fate of metal(loid)s in slag or fly ash. The aim is to reduce easily evaporated metal(loid)s, such as Pb and Cd, in the pretreatment and the remainder primary such as Cu and Ni during the gasification process through incorporation into slag. The produced syngas will be provided for the downstream fermentation process in bottled form. The ambition of GOLD is to investigate the syngas fermentation in a lab-scale bioreactor system. Biofuels like ethanol, 1-butanol, 2,3-butandiol and 1-hexanol (products are specific for individual acetogens) are produced and the metabolisms examined for contaminations. A (continuous) lab-scale gas fermentation process at well-defined reaction conditions is established for efficient production of biofuels.
To develop and model optimized value-chains where selected energy crops will be grown on selected contaminated sites for the dual purpose of biofuel production and land decontamination, thus achieving a win-win solution. It will fill research gaps in the value chains, from the cultivation phase till the clean biofuel production. In addition, it will apply existing spatially explicit models that will assess the long term changes in contaminant levels in soil, as well as provide estimates of the regional production capacity of biomass to be used for biofuel production.
