Clean water is the indispensable element of life and is at the heart of the European Green Deal’s Zero Pollution Action Plan. Current state-of-the-art water remediation technologies are based on toxic volatile organic solvents and/or unsustainable sorbents with limited capacity/selectivity. These limitations, together with health and economic concerns due to the foreseen increase in urbanization and water pollution, claim for the urgent development of new cost-efficient and environment-friendly extractant systems.

POSEIDON (hydroPhObic eutectic SolvEnts In water remeDiatiON) aims at the rational design-by-understanding of a novel class of sustainable extractants based on Hydrophobic Eutectic Solvents (HES) and their combination in Hydrophobic EutectoGels (HEG) and HES-loaded Cellulose nanoSponges (HECS). 

Formed by mixing two non-ionic components from renewable sources, type V HESs area liquid materials with promising properties and economic and environmental advantages (100% atom economy and E-factor of 0 theoretically achievable). In POSEIDON, Hydrophobic Eutectic EXtractants (HEEX) will be explored for the first time in disperser-free dispersive liquid-liquid and solid-liquid microextraction of industrial contaminants of emerging concern (ICEC). The latter include micropollutants present in surface water, listed as priority (hazardous) substances, acting as endocrine disruptors (phthalates, bisphenol A) and characterized by bioaccumulative effects (perfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS).