Portal de Cartagena
www.portaldecartagena.com
The Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT) has today launched the desalobradora of its Tomás Ferro Agroalimentary Experimental Station.
The Rector, Alejandro Díaz, the general director of the Water of the Region, Miguel Ángel del Amor and the director of the Chair of Sustainable Agriculture of the UPCT, Juan José Martínez, have unsealed together with representatives of agricultural cooperatives this infrastructure that will allow to study techniques to reduce the brine generated by these plants, to denitrify it and to valorise it.
"If we have a concession of 110 hm3 of well water in the Campo de Cartagena, we were producing about 25 hm3 of brine, but if we reduce the rejection to 5%, for example, we would recover 20 hm3 for irrigation and we will only produce 5 hm3 of water. brine 20 hm3 of water for irrigation is a lot of water ", said the director of the Chair promoted by the agricultural organizations.
"But we do not want to stay in the reduction of the brine, also in reusing it for the manufacture of bleach and in reducing the salinity of the waste so that it could be feasible to dump it into the Mediterranean," he added.
Martinez has stated that the laboratory tests are being "very positive", but has had an impact on waiting for the conclusions that they draw from the studies that will be carried out with the use of the desalobradora.
With this infrastructure, the researchers of the UPCT will try to denitrify the water through a bioreactor process with wood chips in water tanks.
Juan José Martínez, director of the Chair of Sustainable Agriculture, explained that they expect to generate, from the 5,600 cubic meters of well water that they have permission to extract each year, about 1,000 cubic meters of brine per year that will be housed in a reservoir that It has the right conditions to avoid contamination of aquifers.
Researchers will start working on the denitrification of the brine, although Martinez has pointed out that they also contemplate other lines of research such as giving other uses to the brine as it is to make it bleach or solidify it, as well as studying how its use can be related to renewable energies , for which we will work with UPCT researchers such as Ángel Molina.
The works will be fully multidisciplinary, including experts in hydraulics, civil engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, pedology and agricultural technology.
For his part, the Rector of the UPCT has put in value the "triple helix" of collaboration between the Public Administration, the University and the agricultural industry, through the Chair, to be able to work in research on denitrification and reuse of brine .
The general director of the Water of the Region, Miguel Ángel del Amor, has assured that it is "essential" to look for formulas to reuse the brine and revalue it.
It is essential to achieve a circular economy. "
The representatives of FECOAM and COAG, members of the Chair of Sustainable Agriculture, have been satisfied with this progress.
"This is the solution for the field of Cartagena, agriculture is in luck," they assured.
Source: UPCT
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