ELECTRA · Electricity driven Low Energy and Chemical input Technology foR Accelerated bioremediation

The ELECTRA project is a EU-China RTD joint initiative that will deliver 2 innovative sets of novel electromicrobiology based environmental biotechnologies, facilitating/improving electron transfer during microbial degradation processes. Our approach will accelerate the elimination of several classes of pollutants and mixtures thereof in contaminated wastewater, groundwater, sediment and soil. The first set of biotechnologies employs bioelectrochemical systems requiring low energy input and no chemical addition. The second set comprises biotechnologies, which necessitate no energy input and minimal chemical amendment using electromicrobial concepts. ELECTRA biotechnologies will build on recent groundbreaking advances in biotechnology to develop them for environmental bioremediation applications and test the 4 most advanced technologies during field trials under various environmentally relevant conditions in both Europe (4 sites with contaminated wastewater, groundwater, soil, and sediment) and China (4 sites: mirroring tests concept) to prove their efficiency and robustness. The ELECTRA project deliberately addresses the accelerated elimination of compounds representative of hydrocarbons and derivatives, emerging pollutants, metals and nutrients and mixtures thereof in environmentally relevant concentration as a wise and careful approach taking into account the real problem of contaminations by organic and inorganic pollutants as well as nutrients. ELECTRA is a consortium of European and Chinese partners for a 4-year project. The EC-funded consortium gathers 17 partners from 6 EU countries,1 Associated Country. 1 large Chinese company is part of the EC consortium without claiming any funding from the EC since NSFC finances only fundamental research and does not allow for the inclusion of companies as partners in NSFC projects. This company has a key/essential role in replicating field test experiments from European sites to Chinese sites. The NSFC-funded consortium is constituted by five research institutions acting as international partners.