Agricultural Innovation at the Mi-Hy and CONFETI Bilateral Workshop

Mi-Hy and CONFETI are working on sustainable and innovative solutions in agriculture. Both projects are part of the 8 projects included in the ‘CO2 and Nitrogen Valorization and Management’ Portfolio, funded by the European Innovation Council (EIC).

The Bilateral Workshop took place at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), on September 19th and 20th, bringing together the Mi-Hy and CONFETI projects.  Both projects are part of the ‘CO₂ and Nitrogen Valorization and Management’ Portfolio, funded by the European Innovation Council (EIC). The event focused on identifying synergies between the two projects and exploring potential collaborations in areas such as urea production, microbes, and Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs).

Focus on greener urea production

The first session focused on innovative and environmentally friendly approaches to urea production. Mi-Hy presented their work on producing urea through hydroponic systems, a process that supports sustainable agricultural practices. Professor Neil Willey, University of the West of England, who specializes in plant physiology, explained what the Mi-Hy project is trying to achieve: “We are trying to develop a hydroponic system that puts the microbes back into hydroponics. We actually need fertilizer inputs for our hydroponic system, but those fertilizer inputs have got to be sustainable. The Mi-Hy project is really to see if we can optimize how efficiently the nutrients, water and light are used by the plants.”

The CONFETI team, led by Dr. Gonzalo Guirado of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), presented their method for producing urea by capturing Nitrogen and CO2 from the air and soil.  From the environmental team of CONFETI, Anna Petit-Boix, postdoctoral researcher at the ICTA-UAB (Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at UAB), pointed out: "There are different objectives individually. One is producing energy; other one is capturing CO₂ and producing urea. And another is converting nitrates into less damaging products for the soil. I think this is an interesting approach to the circular economy of agriculture”.

Both approaches show great promise for reducing the environmental footprint of traditional fertilizer production, in line with the green values and objectives of the EIC portfolio and the fight against climate change. “CONFETI and Mi-Hy are really focused on carbon and nitrogen valorization, which is absolutely aligned to the portfolio”, Prof. Willey added.

MFCs, microbes and their role in energy

The next thematic session explored the role of microbes in energy production. “We work to enhance the electricity production to select some specific microorganisms that are able to grow on the electrodes of the system, and they get their power or they eat organic matter and release electrons through redox reactions”, informed Ignacio Moro, from Bioo team, and centered on how soil microbes and engineered biofilms can be used to further improve these processes. Bioo is a company that focuses on different technologies, such as Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs), and is one of the partners in the CONFETI project consortium. They have designed an electrochemical system that is able to generate electricity from soil and microorganisms that live naturally in the soil. They are able to power different devices such as the CONFETI fertilizer production system. 

About the integration of the Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) into each project system, Professor Willey stated: “In Mi-Hy, we have to try to get the MFCs and the microbial electrochemical cells to talk to each other. In fact, one of the challenges we have in both projects is getting the different parts of the system to talk to each other”. Regarding to this system connection and communication, the professor and researcher at the Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (IMB-CSIC), Paco Serra, talked about how they are developing “a custom chip that is able to extract the energy from the MFCs and it can deliver it to other electronic components that communicate information from sensors on this device”.

Collaborations: Looking to the future

This Bilateral Workshop ended with an overview of possible future collaborations. “There is a really good complementarity between both projects. The urea and the ammonia that CONFETI produces might be very helpful in Mi-Hy's hydroponic system because we are trying to make a hydroponic system that uses sustainable sources of nitrogen”, Professor Neil Willey emphasized the importance of sharing synergies between these two projects from the CO2 and nitrogen valorization EIC Portfolio.

In conclusion, the event proved to be successful in promoting dialogue and cross-project synergies, leaving participants optimistic about the future of sustainable agriculture and energy technologies.