iMermaid: HORIZON-MISS-2022-OCEAN-01-03: ACTION 101112824: Mediterranean Sea basin lighthouse - Actions to prevent, minimize and remediate chemical pollution

iMERMAID is an EU-funded project focused on protecting the Mediterranean Sea and its surroundings, which play a crucial role in various socioeconomic activities. It aims to address the growing threats of chemical contamination and pollution caused by human activities. iMERMAID aims at integrating innovative strategies for prevention, monitoring, and remediation.

By building together a consortium of 26 partners from Europe and beyond, the project will encourage collaborations to develop advanced sensor and remediation technologies, strengthen regulations to reduce contamination, enhance economic opportunities, and thereby improve the quality of life for EU residents.

The Leachate Treatment Plant (LTP) of Pera Galini Sanitary Landfill, Crete is a tertiary treatment plant that receives the leachate produced by the Sanitary Landfill of Pera Galini. The Municipal Sanitary Landfill of Pera Galini is the largest landfill of the island and receives > 120,000 tons/year of municipal solid waste from the majority of Heraklion prefecture.

The presence of a wide range of chemicals in municipal solid waste landfill leachates is expected and documented. ESDAK is the Use case 5 leader and the main objective of this Use case is the deployment of monitoring and remediation technologies for organic pollutants in the existing LTP of the Pera Galinon Landfill.

The objective of the Use Case 5 is to demonstrate the feasibility at real scale of upstream organic CoEC pollution remediation as a solution for preventing chemical pollution in the Mediterranean basin. A Microfluidic water system which is an innovative solution for the removal of organic contaminants from landfill leachates will be deployed and will be tested for its efficiency in removing micropollutants for the final effluent. In the same use case, an electrochemical sensor will be developed for monitoring organic micropollutants and heavy metals in the effluent and its applicability will be demonstrated.