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EU project
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor REA can be held responsible for them.

Grant agreement ID: 101079345

The project „Sustainable Remediation of Radionuclide Impacts on Land and Critical Materials Recovery“ aims to establish a multinational research agenda and project pipeline for radionuclides land remediation and materials recovery, with a particular focus on rare earth elements.

About the project CXI TUL SURRI team and the DIAMO

The Institute for Nanomaterials, Advanced Technologies and Innovations (CXI) TUL is a research center of the TUL. Our goal is to contribute to developing a region traditionally oriented towards technical industries. Our research directions are Nanomaterials in natural sciences, Competitive engineering, and System integration. Every year, around 80 research and developing projects employ about 180 scientific, technical, and administrative staff. Students, mainly Ph.D. students, are also involved in the research.

About the project CXI TUL SURRI team and the DIAMO

NEWS: Innovative research on selected post-mining sites

A team of experts from the SURRI project, which focuses on research and innovative solutions in the field of cleaning and treatment of sites after the extraction of strategic raw materials, visited one of the selected sites in the DIAMO state enterprise in Stráž pod Ralskem.

MORE INFO

About the project CXI TUL SURRI team and the DIAMO

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Base concept of the project

THE SITES

In the last century Germany, former Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania were the largest uranium producers globally. Consequently, there are many radionuclide impacted sites across Europe. These sites create impacts on soil and water. In CZ, the impact of substantial uranium mining activity was carried out at 23 locations either in open-cast mining, subsurface mining, or in-situ acid leaching. These sites are now in the hands of a state-owned company DIAMO.

Two pilot projects will be carried out on the sites:

Combined electrochemical/electrokinetic/biological approaches for U mine tailings risk management for various contaminants.
Critical element (inc. Rare Earth Elements) recovery from U-mining residues through combined EK/chemical/bio-mining approaches.

ACTIVITIES

The project is concentrated into 6 workpackages (WP):

WP1	Developing of research excellence: Advance TUL’s research excellence in radionuclide impact mitigation by the creation of an international virtual center
WP2	Research vision, agenda and pipeline: To enhance the research and innovation capacity of TUL and mobilize a broad range of supporters to develop a shared research agenda
WP3	Research profile uplift: Raise the research profile of the TUL in radionuclide problem management, e.g. number of impacted publications, new Ph.D. students, collaboration with industry
WP4	Research management competencies uplift: Strengthen research management servicing and administrative skills at TUL- to improve TUL’s ability to make proposals of HEU and similar calls as Principal Investigator
WP5	Development of networking and support: Develop an international network of supporters, contributors and participants in the proposed virtual centre, and facilitate mobility between the different interested parties (dissemination, communication, exploitation)
WP5	Project management

TECHNOLOGIES
Digitized data-driven approach

For a moment these technologies are considered for testing:

Combining granular ZVI PRBs with Electrokinetics [for forced migration, adsorption/reductive precipitation and enhanced electrochemical breakdown of mixed contaminants (plus ZVI regeneration), and critical element recovery].
Algae (duckweeds) as U phytoremediators in open tailings ponds.
Critical or precious metal recovery using reactive silica hydride surfaces;
Enhancing U and radionuclide phytoextraction and/or critical element recovery – within-plant transfer of radionuclides and role of rhizospheric bacterial and fungal consortia in phytostabilisation or phytoextraction.
REE and critical element recycling using electrokinetics and nanoclay adsorbents (or using graphene adsorbents).

SO1		SO2		SO3		SO4		SO5		.
Advance TUl:'s research excellence in radionuclide impact mitiption WP1 - Developing research excellence		Develop a shared research vision and supportinc research agenda for the virtual centre and a supporting R&D project pipeline WP2 Research vision agenda and pipeline		Raise the research profile of the TUL in radionuclide problem management WP3 - Research profile uplift		Strengthen research management, servicing and administrative skills at TUL WP4 - Research management competencies uplift		Develop an international network of supporters, contributors and participants in the proposed virtual centre WP5 - Development of networking and support		WP6 - Project Management

SO1

Advance TUl:'s research excellence in radionuclide impact mitiption
WP1 - Developing research excellence

SO2

Advance TUl:'s research excellence in radionuclide impact mitiption
WP1 - Developing research excellence

SO3

Develop a shared research vision and supportinc research agenda for the virtual centre and a supporting R&D project pipeline
WP2 Research vision agenda and pipeline

SO4

Raise the research profile of the TUL in radionuclide problem management
WP3 - Research profile uplift

SO5

Strengthen research management, servicing and administrative skills at TUL
WP4 - Research management competencies uplift

Develop an international network of supporters, contributors and participants in the proposed virtual centre
WP5 - Development of networking and support

SO1

WP6 - Project Management

MEET OUR TEAM

Miroslav Černík

is a graduate of the Faculty of Nuclear and Physical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) in the field of nuclear chemical engineering. He obtained his PhD doctorate at the ETH in Zurich in Natural Sciences. Since 1995 he has worked for environmental consultancy AQUATEST (Czech R.) in the remediation of environmental liabilities. In 2004, he joined the Technical University of Liberec (TUL), where he was appointed a professor of applied science in engineering (2014). In 2021 he became a director of the Institute for Nanomaterials, Advanced Technologies, and Innovations (CXI) of TUL. He is the author of more than 150 publications, books, and chapters and a number of patents. His research deals with nanomaterials in environmental protection and the risk of nanomaterials to the environment. He is currently the principal investigator of the international European project LIFEPOPWAT, focused on the treatment of water flowing from old pesticide landfills and project SURRI dealing with the recovery of raw materials from uranium-contaminated sites.

Marco Petrangeli Papini

is an Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry at Università di Roma La Sapienza. Graduated with honours in Industrial Chemistry in 1990 and finished PhD in Chemical Sciences in 1994. Currently holds the course "Chemical Industrial Processes and Plant" and "Dynamics of Contaminants and Remediation of Polluted sites" in the frame of the Industrial Chemistry degree. Since 2010 is the Director of the II Level Master in "Characterization and Technology for the Remediation of Polluted Sites" of the Faculty of Mathematical, Natural and Physical Sciences. He has written more than 100 international publications in this area. Currently an expert member of the technical committee at the Ministry of the Environment in charge of evaluating the remediation projects at the National Priority Sites and managing the landfill emergency in Calabria. He is the scientific coordinator of several national and international scientific and operative projects in the field of the remediation of contaminated sites.

Andrew Cundy

is a Professor of Environmental Radioactivity, and Research Director of the University consultancy and research unit GAU-Radioanalytical, in the School of Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton. Having originally studied oceanography, he graduated with a PhD in Geology from Southampton in 1994 and since then has worked at various UK Universities before re-joining Southampton in 2016. He has over 30 years of research and teaching experience in the environmental cycling and behaviour of aquatic and terrestrial pollutants (radioactive, metal, organic, and plastic contaminants); environmental radioactivity and radiochemistry; environmental geology; sediment geochemistry; radiometric dating; and contaminated land, wastes and water management (including the development of more sustainable contaminated land clean-up methods). Former and active projects in these and related areas have been or are funded from a range of RCUK, EU, Charity, DTI and industry and environmental body sources and involve collaboration with a range of UK and international academic and industry partners.

Mohamed Larbi Merroun

is a Professor at the Department of Microbiology at Universidad de Granada. He earned his degree in Biology from the University of Tetuan (Morocco). He obtained his Ph.D. degree at Department of Microbiology, University of Granada. From 1999 to 2008 he was Senior Researcher at Helmholtz Center Dresden-Rossendorf. He is an active user of Radiation Synchrotron Facilities (e.g. ESRF, Soleil). He was awarded by Ramon y Cajal Program Tenure track grant (2008-2012). He has more than 20 years of experience in undergraduate and graduate teaching at the University of Granada, Spain and abroad. He has participated in more than 120 conferences, with more than 190 contributions as invited, contributed talks and posters. Since 2010 he has obtained >3.600.000 funding. He has written over 100 international publications, such as research papers, book chapters, and conference proceedings. He has supervised more than 35 bachelor or master students in their research tasks and 6 Ph.D. students, plus 5 ongoing PhD thesis. He takes peer-review tasks for a wide range of scientific journal and research agencies. Prof. Merroun research interests are focused on bioremediation of heavy metal/radionuclide contaminated sites, microbiology of deep geological disposal of radioactive wastes, geomicrobiology, microbial recovery of critical materials.

OUTPUTS

NETWORKING OUTPUTS

SURRI: Newsletter No 1 [PDF, 1,4MB]

SURRI: Newsletter No 2 [PDF, 3,2MB]

EVENTS

Events & News

11/2023

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Technická univerzita v Liberci
Ústav pro nanomateriály, pokročilé technologie a inovace
Bendlova 7, 46001 Liberec

Email:

surri@tul.cz

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+420 485 353 769

NEWS: Innovative research on selected post-mining sites