UniversidaddeCádiz

The ‘REALM’ initiative seeks to achieve a circular economy that will transform wastewater from hydroponic crops into products for application in the agrochemical and aquaculture industry

Researchers from the University of Cadiz, coordinated by Professor Jesús Ruiz González, from the Department of Environmental Technology, are participating in the European project REALM – Reusing Effluents from Agriculture to unLock the potential of Microalgae. This is a Horizon Europe research initiative funded by the European Union that pursues a Blue Bioeconomy.

This project aims to achieve a circular economy through the transformation of waste products, such as wastewater from hydroponic crops (without land for cultivation) in greenhouses, into valuable products for application in the agrochemical and aquaculture industry. For this, the development of microalgae biotechnology will be carried out, which “will make this possible in a sustainable way, generating in turn a clean effluent and capturing CO2”, as explained from the UCA. In this work, in which, in addition to Ruiz González, the researchers José Antonio Perales and Carmen Garrido are involved, two water treatment plants based on microalgae biotechnology are being built at a demonstrative level, in Portugal and Almería, and another two for validation, in the Netherlands and Finland. The aim is to establish a process that can be replicated in any European country. In this way, REALM draws on the research and knowledge of partners in other countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium.