May 21st, 2015
The Forum untitled "Boosting competitiveness and innovation" is being held by the European Commission on 20th and 21st of May in Barcelona. The main purpose of this event is presenting the last developments in the eco-innovation field: an important moment where emerging and cutting-edge innovators will get in contact with new promising solutions under political, financial and technological point of view.
During the session "Best of Eco-innovation: project success stories", this afternoon from 2.30 pm to 4.30 pm, Directa Plus will present GEnIuS, Graphene.
Eco Innovative Sorbent, selected from the European Commission as one of the best project in the eco-innovation field.
Directa Plus research has driven to the creation of an ecologic, innovative and highly effective oil-adsorbent, characterized by unique performances in oil adsorbency, and at the same time absence of toxicity and flammability, and the possibility to recover oil.
The creation of this graphene-based oil-adsorbent product, commercialized as Grafysorber, has been promoted by GEnIuS project and already approved by the Italian Ministry of Enviroment to be used in occasion of oil spills clean-up activities.
Grafysorber has been firstly industrially tested in a Romanian former refinery site, containing a basin with about 30.000 m3 of water contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons. The product used as loose material was able to abate the hydrocarbons concentration from 200-300 ppm down to 0.5 ppm.
"Grafysorber embodies the nano-carbon paradox – Giulio Cesareo, Directa Plus President and CEO, commented – in fact with a nano-carbon material we are able to cut down part of damages caused by hydrocarbons, derived from carbon itself. Moreover, our product, once exhausted after depuration of water, finishes positively its life cycle inside the asphalt and bitumen, introducing new properties as thermal conductivity and mechanical reinforcement. I believe that every company is obliged to work following a sustainable approach to guarantee a balanced use of resources and their reuse, where possible.