GOLD is a Horizon 2020 project, started in May 2021 that aims to produce clean low Indirect Land Use Change biofuels by growing selected high- yielding lignocellulosic crops on contaminated land, and, in long-term, to return the polluted lands back to the agricultural production. International collaboration outside the EU, regarding Innovation Mission Challenge 4 on Biofuels, is fostered with three highly consuming countries such as Canada, China and India.
GOLD builds on three pillars. The first pillar aims to optimize selected energy crops for phytoremediation, to develop optimized phytoremediation solutions for decontamination purposes. In the second pillar the contaminated feedstock will be converted to clean biofuels; both gasification and pyrolysis routes will be tested. In both cases the main contamination constituents will be collected in a concentrated form: respectively a vitrified slag and high-density biochar. In the third pillar selected value-chains for biofuels production and land decontamination will be modelled using data from the other two pillars and will be analysed in terms of cost, sustainability and SDGs for the creation of win-win situations. RE-CORD is Leader of WP3 “Integrated sustainability assessment for bridging the gap the between the optimized phytoremediation solutions with energy crops and the clean biofuel production with low ILUC risks”.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 101006873
