Overview
The project sought to create green railway corridors by means of systems for removing contaminants associated with the operation of the infrastructure, especially in relation to ballast, to improve the environment of the track itself and its surrounding area. To do this, the project designed several systems to capture and remove heavy metals and hydrocarbon pollutants through different technologies:
Sol-gel ballast coating composed of silicon oxide and complexing functional groups capable of absorbing heavy metals, and photocatalytic titanium oxide capable of degrading hydrocarbons.
Ballast modification by fixing ionically printed polymers based on polyurethanes.
Soil microbial population phytoremediation and bioaugmented processes.
Funding
Results
The project aimed to achieve: A system design to capture and eliminate heavy metals and hydrocarbons in the ballast and soil adjacent to railway tracks and generate pollution-free zones associated with the circulation of trains.