http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life
LIFE is the EU’s financial instrument supporting environmental, nature conservation and climate action projects throughout the EU. Since 1992, LIFE has co-financed some 4306 projects. For the 2014-2020 funding period, LIFE will contribute approximately €3.4 billion to the protection of the environment and climate.
LIFE Impetus is a LIFE14 project under the sub-programme for Environment (LIFE14 ENV/PT/000739).
Networking
activities
with other
EU projects
LIFE Hymemb Tailoring hybrid membrane processes for sustainable drinking water production (2014-2016).
LNEC (coordinator) and Águas do Algarve were the beneficiaries of LIFE Hymemb, which demonstrated the hybrid process of powdered activated carbon adsorption (PAC)/ceramic microfiltration (MF) as a resilient and sustainable solution for controlling pharmaceutical compounds, pesticides, cyanotoxins, viruses and protozoan (oo)cysts in drinking water treatment.
The project strategy involved the selection of a short-list of representative target-contaminants to be controlled, the PAC selection and application (tailoring) for specific contaminants and the benchmarking between PAC/MF and PAC conventional addition in Alcantarilha Water Treatment Plant (WTP) (Algarve, Portugal). The long-term demonstration character of the project (> 1 year) was accomplished with a PAC/MF prototype developed by LNEC which operated in Alcantarilha WTP.
LIFE Impetus and LIFE Hymemb networking allowed both projects to benefit from sharing experiences, namely from the technological point of view, regarding the use of activated carbon adsorption and coagulation for PhC control and analytical methods for PhC quantification as well as concerning the cost-benefit analysis and the stakeholders involvement.
LIFE aWARE Innovative hybrid MBR-(PAC-NF) systems to promote water reuse (2013-2016).
LNEC together with Aigües de Barcelona were Associated Beneficiaries of LIFE aWARE, coordinated by CETAqua (Barcelona, Spain). LNEC’s role in LIFE aWARE was to select and optimise at lab-scale the PACs for PAC/NF hybrid process.
Many lessons, knowledge and experience were shared between LIFE aWARE and LIFE Impetus projects with respect to micropollutants in the water cycle and the associated environmental-health issues in Spain and in Portugal, PhC’s control in WWTPs, the activated carbon adsorption technology, the cost-benefit analysis, etc.
Water_2020 Conceiving Wastewater Treatment in 2020 - Energetic, environmental and economic challenges
AdA participation in Water 2020 COST action may bring good inputs for LIFE Impetus, namely for actions B7 and C1.
LIFE SEACAN Towards higher protection of marine ecosystems implementing more effective and sustainable wastewater treatment technologies.
This project, coordinated by CETaqua and counting on the participation of the University of Santiago de Compostela and the University of Vigo, will foster the reduction of the environmental impact caused by the fish transforming industries by addressing the integrated management of nutrients and organic pollution for the achievement of the Water Framework Directive and Marine Strategy Framework Directive requirements. LIFE SEACAN aims at demonstrating the application of biofilm-based effluent treatment systems and the effect of proposed treatment technology will be assessed by benthic ecosystem monitoring. The results attained for the study developed in the Galician coastline can be transferred to other coastal areas in Europe, experiencing the same environmental problems.
LIFE EMPORE Improving the quality of water.
This project, coordinated by Laboratorios Tecnológicos de Levante and counting on the participation of EPSAR - Entidad Pública de Saneamiento de Aguas Residuales de la Comunidad Valenciana, Unesco-IHE, Universidad de Alicante, AIDIMME and CONSOMAR, will demonstrate an innovative, cost-efficient and highly replicable technology for the removal of emerging pollutants from urban wastewater. For this purpose, a 5 m3/h mobile pilot plant, consisting of column filtration/adsorption, membrane filtration, advanced oxidation processes (AOP) and electrochemical AOPs (EAOPs), will be designed and integrated into Benidorm WWTP (Spain).
CFIS-ECOPHARMA Innovative Continuous Flow Integrative Sampler for Pharmaceutical Compounds Detection.
This EC Eco-innovation initiative, led by Labaqua and with the participation of FAI, Fundación Ramón Domínguez, CETaqua, Emalcsa and AquaEnviro, aimed at improving the quality of surface waters across Europe and meeting new EU legislation standards, by helping detect chemical pollutants that pose a potential risk to human and marine health, in particular,
pharmaceuticals and herbicides in water, through the use of a new Continuous Flow Integrative Sampler (with SPE and SBSE methods of extraction of pollutants from water).
LIFE IMPETUS was kindly invited for the Final Networking event of CFIS-Ecopharma (Santiago de Compostela, 30Nov’16), where WaterNanoEnv, LIFE EMPORE, LIFE IMPETUS, Sea-on-a-chip, BRAAVOO and SeMPAC projects discussed the new trends on emerging pollutants.
LIFE ECOGRANULARWATER Technology based on biological methods for the removal of nitrates, phosphates, pesticides and other pollutants from groundwater supplies for human consumption.
This “Drinking water” project, approved within the “Environment and Resource Efficiency” focus area of the 2016 Call of the LIFE Programme, proposes a low-cost technology solution for municipalities affected by this environmental problem. It is being implemented by a partnership between the University of Granada (Spain), Aalto University (Finland), Construcciones Otero Company (Spain) and the Provincial Council of Granada (Spain), which acts as partnership coordinator.
LIFE LIBERNITRATE is a 3 years project in the context of the LIFE funding program whose main aim is to reduce the concentration of nitrates in the entire water cycle. To achieve this objective, two prototypes will be developed within the framework of the project (2017-2020). One prototype will produce active silica from the controlled incineration of rice straw to obtain silica-rich ash and the other prototype will integrate active silica beds to reduce the concentration of nitrates in the water.
