LSRE-LCM is pleased to welcome researcher Catarina Cruzeiro to the team! Catarina has secured funding from the “la Caixa” Foundation through the Postdoctoral Junior Leader Fellowship (Incoming call) for her innovative project, "ReWateR: Recovery of Wastewater Resources in Agriculture", with a global budget of 297.9 k€.

ReWateR aims to enhance sustainable agriculture by producing fertilizers through resource recovery from the anaerobic digestion process. This effort contributes to the transition towards a Circular and Bio-based Economy, enhancing sustainable water resource management and ensuring ecosystem safety. The project will produce fertilizers rich in nutrients and organic matter (biosolids), and evaluate their toxicological risks and performance when applied to edible crops.

The “la Caixa” Foundation grants a total of 40 postdoctoral fellowships per year (in the case of Call 2023, there were 25 Incoming and 15 Retaining fellowships granted) to outstanding researchers of any nationality to conduct research in STEM disciplines at universities and research centres of accredited excellence in Spain and Portugal. This programme promotes high-quality, innovative research and supports the best scientific talents by providing an attractive and competitive environment for excellent research. See here for more details on the “la Caixa” Postdoctoral Junior Leader Fellowship.

The RF ProTex consortium, which includes CITEVE, FEUP, FCUP and REQUIMTE, has been working on the development of a new line of clothing with electromagnetic radiation attenuation properties, using innovative finishing technologies.

José Barbosa, researcher at LSRE-LCM at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Porto, gave a presentation at the second day of the iTechStyle Summit, highlighting the advantages of carbon materials. These materials are not harmful to the environment; on the contrary, they have several advantages: they have greater chemical resistance, they are more economical than other materials and it is easier to modify their properties. What's more, we're made of carbon.

In a detailed presentation, the researcher explained the objectives of the project, the development process, the comparison of the different materials studied and the final conclusions. The result of the project is two collections of modern, light and comfortable clothing.