TOPICS

Identification and monitoring of pollutants: substances with biological risk in different matrices; national and international regulations.

Degradation of contaminants of emerging concern: human pharmaceuticals and personal care products, veterinary medicines, industrial chemicals, abusive drugs, etc.

Bioremediation of priority pollutants: organochlorides, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, etc.

New technologies in biotreatment: nanoparticles, surfactants, biopolymers, membranes, etc.

New biodegraders and consortium-based strategies: new organisms able to degrade priority pollutants or contaminants of emerging concern, new microbial formulations, phytoremediation, rhizoremediation, algae and their bacterial consortia.

Anthropogenic impacts on the microbial communities: disturbance of the native populations caused by the introduction of pollutants and/or treatment systems, with potential benefits (e.g., natural attenuation) or malfunctions (e.g., negative impact on the microbial diversity).

Mathematical models for bioremediation processes: biochemical kinetics, metabolic networks, stochastic models of biochemical and genetic networks, dynamic models in biological systems, etc.

Waste recovery: integrated bioprocesses for waste recovery aiming the production of materials and energy, namely composting, production of biofuels (solid, liquid and gas – anaerobic digestion) and bioplastics, development and implementation of biorefineries.