About

The development of economic activities often causes harmful changes in the environment and human life quality. One example is the extensive use of agricultural soils for biofuels biomass (deforestation, food/feed competition, excessively use of fresh water). Another is soil salinisation (1 to 3 mil. ha in the European Union), with lower or zero suitability for traditional agriculture production. To achieve the restoration of agriculture production and thus economical growth, the remediation of affected soils through efficient and economic ways is necessary.

HaloSYS addresses the challenge of using halophytes to develop integrated bioremediation and biorefining system. Its objectives are:

• Sustainable use of unsuitable lands for any agriculture purpose.
• Bio-based products through biorefining: separation of biomass major components (fibres, sugars, oils, proteins); extraction, identification and characterisation of specific bioactive molecules (enzymes, phenols, alkaloids, etc.); and valorisation of extracted components and resulted waste from biomass processing to produce bio-based products (pharmaceuticals, 2G biofuels, biopolymers).
• Biologic carbon sequestration – following the concept of terrestrial (or biologic) sequestration, different plant species will contribute to CO2 capture and storing as carbon both in plants and soil.

Results

• Environmentally sustainable growth under climate changes effect and environmental pressures, and biodiversity and ecosystem services preservation.
• Intensification of agriculture through phytoremediation practices using halophytes culture systems on saline soils.
• Opportunity to develop new agriculture crops to overcome the economic losses due to continuous trend of soil aridisation.