Curing contaminated and saline land with Industrial crops and producing biomass for high-value applications

Project Information

IASIS

Grant agreement ID: 101157430

DOI

10.3030/101157430

EC signature date 16 May 2024

Start date 1 October 2024

End date 30 September 2028

Funded under

• Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

Total cost

€ 4 999 900,01

EU contribution

€ 4 999 900,00

Coordinated by

CENTRE FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES AND SAVING FONDATION
Greece

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - IASIS (Curing contaminated and saline land with Industrial crops and producing biomass for high-value applications)

Reporting period: 2024-10-01 to 2025-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

IASIS aims at providing solutions for: (i) curing both contaminated and saline land through phytomanagement by cultivating selected high-yielding industrial crops and by testing new zero pollution approaches, (ii) ensuring the availability of biomass feedstock for high-value applications in bioeconomy, (iii) developing economic-viable and sustainable value chains supporting the production of intermediate and end bioproducts and increasing the corresponding knowledge, (iv) improving biodiversity, soil functionality and ecosystem services, (v) establishing successful case studies, in which farmers will have an active role from the very beginning, enhancing their knowledge on the successful management of contaminated and/or saline soils and on the opportunities to generate an additional income preventing them from abandoning their land.
The impact of IASIS
1. Increased feedstock availability to bio-based industries for high-value non-food applications by growing industrial crops on contaminated or saline lands. contributing to their reconversion and avoiding their abandonment. Mitigate the exposure route for the intake of contaminants by humans.
2. Enhanced knowledge on sustainable options to extract and recover added value compounds from industrial crops feedstock and processing them to high value products (intermediate and end-products).
3. Development of guidelines, recommendations, thresholds, and restrictions for the utilised biomass produced from the IASIS field case studies (FCSs).
4. Enhanced knowledge on characteristics and quality of biomass grown on contaminated and salt-affected soils.
5. Contribution to soil curing (contaminated or saline) by applying phytomanagement practices targeting the land reconversion to other uses like agriculture, recreation avoiding at the same time their abandonment.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

IASIS aims at providing solutions for curing both contaminated and saline land through phytomanagement. Selected high-yielding, non-food (industrial) crops will provide biomass feedstock to develop intermediate and end bioproducts, following a cascading biorefinery approach, via economic-viable value chains. In order for the main and specific objectives to be fulfilled a total number of 6 work packages have been designed. The work started with the crops’ optimisation (improved genotypes) and phytomanagement strategies (microbial consortia) development (WP1) for both contaminated and saline soils that will be tested and validated both in lab scale and in field case studies (FCSs) in the 2nd half of the project. FCSs have been set up (WP2) in eight sites in Europe (4 contaminated and 4 saline), where 8 high-yielding, non-food (industrial) crops are being grown, following low-input and phytomanagement practices, to produce feedstock for the value chains and the bio-products development (WP3) as well as to engage and train the farming community (WP2). Two main groups of bioproducts are being developed (WP3) based on the type of industrial crops exploited (oilseeds and lignocellulosic) and in total 10 intermediate and 10 end-products will be developed and tested. Sustainability and feasibility assessment will be carried out on the most promising biomass-to-products pathways (WP4). A Decision Support System (DSS), to assess the viability and the soil remediation of the proposed value chains, and applicable business models will be developed tailored to the IASIS needs that will be applied for the IASIS case studies but will be applicable beyond the project. The regulatory framework will be outlined, while policy recommendations will be proposed. During the 1st reporting period the work in WP4 gave emphasis on the settings and definitions for the sustainability assessment. WPs 5 & 6 are dedicated to project dissemination and coordination.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

1. Improved genotypes (crambe and salicornia) with superior performance and yields on contaminated and/or saline soils. First tools for domestication and breeding of underexploited fibre crops like Salicornia.
2. Development of phytoremediation strategies with emphasis on the optimisation of selected microbial consortia that will be used as biofertilisers in the fields of the project.
3. Setting up 8 field case studies (4 contaminated and 4 saline soils) where selected industrial crops (lignocellulosic and/or oilseeds) are being grown (1 ha per FCS; > 8 ha in the project lifetime) in collaboration with farmers groups that have been built for the project’s purposes. Training material is being developed and targeted training activities have been planned. The field case studies will be upgraded to lighthouses.
4. New value chains are being developed, organised in two groups; oilseeds and lignocellulosic crops /fibres and the following products (intermediate and final ones) are being developed: a) 3 intermediate & 4 final products from oilseeds, b) 4 intermediate & 3 final products from lignocellulosic crops and c) 3 intermediate & 3 final products from bast fibre crops. Thus, a total number of 20 products will be developed.
5. Development of decision support system to select the economic viable and sustainable pathways (crops-to-products) that contains several novel modules, such as the pathways multi-criteria assessment, the decontamination estimation, the crop suitability and supply chain optimisation modules.