Sustainable Remediation of Soil and Groundwater: A Multidisciplinary Approach
Soil contamination is a critical environmental challenge, primarily stemming from the release of toxic organic compounds, including hydrocarbons, chlorinated solvents, pesticides, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), among others. Their presence in soils and groundwater leads to lasting impacts and significant risks to human health and ecosystems. The complexity of these contaminants, both in their chemical diversity and in their environmental behavior, makes a multidisciplinary research approach essential, integrating expertise from environmental chemistry, hydrogeology, microbiology, chemical engineering, environmental law, and the circular economy, among other fields.
A paradigmatic case is the contamination by lindane residues in Sabiñánigo (Huesca), whose remediation requires not only advanced and sustainable technologies, but also the active collaboration of research groups specialized in different areas. This case demonstrates that integrating complementary scientific capabilities can yield effective, tailored solutions that are replicable in other settings affected by persistent organic compounds.
Speaker
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Aurora Santos LópezUniversidad Complutense de MadridAurora Santos is a Full Professor of Chemical Engineering and leads the INPROQUIMA research group (https://www.ucm.es/inproquima ) at the Complutense University of Madrid. Since 2018, she has coordinated the CARESOIL-CM R&D Program (https://www.ucm.es/caresoil) and is a Member of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences.
Her career has focused on developing scientific solutions to industrial and environmental problems, working in multidisciplinary teams and in collaboration with companies, with a clear emphasis on knowledge transfer and dissemination. Her research in remediation technologies focuses on innovative treatments that combine oxidants, surfactants, and hybrid approaches, always with a strong emphasis on sustainability. She has led numerous research projects funded by both public and private sources. Her recent contributions have focused on environmental technologies for soil and water remediation (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7804-5677 ), with an emphasis on supervising predoctoral and postdoctoral researchers in this field.