Kick of meeting of Recopharma Project

From 17^th to 18^th January, 2018, the kick off meeting of the Recopharma Project (Removal and Recovery of Pharmaceutical Persistent Pollutants from Wastewater by Selective Reagentless Process) will take place on the campus of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), in Bellaterra, Spain. Representatives of the partners that are part of the project will meet: UAB (Spain) (project coordinator); and 7 other partners, including universities, companies and organizations, such as Lunds University (Sweden); Universite De Pau Et Des Pays De L’adour (France); University of Udine Studies (Italy); Aeris Tecnologías Ambientales S.L. (Spain); Europe For Business Ltd., EFB, (United Kingdom); Universidad de La Habana (Cuba); and Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de Medicamentos, CIDEM, (Cuba).

Recopharma is financed by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) action program of the European Horizon2020 program. The budget of the Project is 895.500,00 € and will continue for 4 years period.

Pharmaceutical drugs, characterized by their environmental persistence (e.g. cytostatic drugs [CDs]) have been detected in water bodies (drinking water, groundwater, surface water, and effluent wastewater) at concentrations up to µ/L level. Actual methods for the removal and degradation of CDs, including electrochemical, photochemical, and biological methods have been developed. However, these methods are expensive and sometimes inefficient for CDs complete removal from the treated water. Including the exploitation of precious results from EU funded projects, the goal of Recopharma is to design develop, validate and demonstrate a novel process by sequential integration the potentials offered by Molecular Imprinted Polymers (MIPs), Reagentless Thermosorption (RTS), Nanocomposites Funtional Materials, Advance Oxidation Processes, for an effective treatment aiming the recovery of target recalcitrant CDs and degradation of corresponding transformation products or metabolites, working in a continuous operation mode. The suggested approach offers versatile, fast, highly, efficient, and low-cost treatment for wastewaters.

Recopharma brings together academic research centres and the private sector, with a long-term goal of designing and developing advanced water treatment technologies in the interest of the society and integrate them for demonstration following a circular economy approach. Through the scheduled secondments, the involved staff will perform the required R&I to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of the developed process, including the technical formation of specialist as a fundamental activity to project success. The secondments will also enhance the exchange of knowledge, best practices, know-how, innovations, experience, mutual cooperation and culture of work between different organizations, regions and countries through the partners’ well-established reputation as transfer hubs between EU and Cuba.