The project BlueWWater – “Controlo, tratamento e redução de microplásticos e poluentes emergentes nas águas residuais urbanas e no ambiente costeiro transfronteiriço” was accepted for financing of 1 M€ by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), within the scope of the Interreg VI Spain – Portugal Cooperation Program (POCTEP) 2021-2027. With funding of 139,684.68 euros, the work on BlueWWater to be developed at FEUP will be coordinated by Vítor Vilar, Principal Researcher at LSRE-LCM.

The BlueWWater project aims to improve the quality of river, transitional and coastal water bodies, through the control, monitoring and evaluation of emissions of microplastics and contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) into the aquatic environment, through the study of the efficiency of the urban wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) in both regions and of the environmental risk of these pollutants, thus guaranteeing a sustainable use of water resources and contributing to the implementation of community regulations.

BlueWWater brings together several entities from north Portugal and Galicia, with CETMAR - Fundación Centro Tecnológico del Mar as project leader, and the institutional partners USC - Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, CIIMAR - Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, FEUP - Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, FCUP - Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, INTECMAR - Instituto Tecnológico para el Control del Medio Marino de Galicia, CMVC - Câmara Municipal de Viana do Castelo, Aquamuseu do Rio Minho do Municipio Vila Nova de Cerveira, CMPEAE - Empresa de Águas e Energia do Município do Porto, Centro Oceanografico de Vigo do Instituto Español de Oceanografia e CETAQUA Galicia - Fundación Centro Gallego de Investigaciones del Agua.

Isabel Sofia Barbosa received the Best Poster Award “Transformation of the Chemical Industry” at the 14^th European Congress of Chemical Engineering and 7^th European Congress of Applied Biotechnology, which took place on 17th – 21st September 2023, in Berlin, Germany. The European Congress of Chemical Engineering is the major event of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE). At ECCE 14 & ECAB 7, scientists from industry, universities, and research institutions from Europe and beyond met to discuss the latest research and industrial applications in all fields of chemistry, process engineering, biotechnology, and related fields.

In this edition, among more than 400 poster presentations, the poster presented by Isabel Barbosa, PhD student at LSRE-LCM, entitled "Photo-assisted production of green ammonia-based fuels", was awarded the prize “Transformation of the Chemical Industry” sponsored by BASF and presented by Dr. Hermann Feise, which is the responsible for Scouting and Academic Networks at BASF and former president of EFCE.

This poster presents the initial results of the SuN2Fuel project, which aims at the photocatalytic production of ammonia as a rising alternative to industrial processes, based on clean technologies and renewable resources, toward a carbon-free economy. The SuN2Fuel project also combines fundamental research on catalysts with the design of suitable reactors and respective techno-economic evaluation of the process to produce ammonia to be used in Fuel Cells. The SuN2Fuel is funded by FCT (2022.04682.PTDC) and is being developed at R&D units LSRE-LCM and CEFT from the Associate Laboratory ALiCE.