Research and Development

AQUADIVERS: Bringing biodiversity assessment for metal emissions to new depths
The European Green Deal challenges industries to safeguard biodiversity and evaluate the potential impact of their emissions on ecosystems. Current assessment tools often fall short, especially when it comes to metal contamination. That’s why ARCHE Consulting, supported by Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO) and in collaboration with GhEnToxLab (Ghent University), launched the AQUADIVERS project - aimed at developing targeted, reliable methods to assess the local impact of metal releases on aquatic biodiversity.

AQUADIVERS proposes a tiered toolbox that combines established and fresh techniques, including bioavailability and metal mixture modeling, biodiversity indices, and environmental DNA (metabarcoding). These approaches will be tested at pilot sites across Flanders throughout 2024 and 2025. The project is designed to set a new benchmark for sustainable industrial practices, offering metal-processing companies cost-effective solutions to monitor and protect biodiversity.

Read more about the AQUADIVERS project on our website or contact Karel Viaene for more information.

ARCHE Consulting, NIVA, and Deltares have joined forces in ENCORE - a pioneering project aimed at advancing environmental risk assessment for chemical co-exposures. Supported by the Cefic-LRI initiative, ENCORE addresses a critical gap: the fact that traditional risk assessments often evaluate chemicals in isolation, overlooking the real-world risks posed by combined exposures and failing to account for both data and model uncertainty.

Through advanced data integration, Bayesian network modelling, and chemical prioritization, ENCORE is developing a dynamic probabilistic framework that not only predicts co-exposure risks but also highlights the chemicals driving them. This innovative approach will provide regulators and industry with new insights, paving the way for more effective risk management and a healthier, more resilient environment.

Read more about the ENCORE project on our website or contact Karel Viaene for more information.

Partnering for Safer, Smarter Nanomaterials - INTEGRANO

ARCHE Consulting is a partner in the INTEGRANO project, which supports the shift toward Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) principles for nanomaterials. INTEGRANO aims to deliver a practical, evidence-based assessment approach that can be directly applied to real-world nanomaterial design cases, aligning with the latest EU guidelines for chemical and material safety.

The project’s ambition is to lay the foundation for a new, standardized assessment framework by developing robust datasets and defining nanospecific impact categories across the full life cycle of nanomaterials. By supporting this initiative, we’re helping shape a future where nanomaterial innovation and sustainability go hand in hand.

Find out more about the INTEGRANO project on the website, or contact Maxime Eliat-Eliat for more information.

ARAGORN, led by the University of Copenhagen and joined by 17 partners from 12 EU nations, aims to empower land managers in protecting Europe's soil. By employing advanced mapping tools, the project will identify polluted areas and develop sustainable remediation strategies, including nature-based solutions. Through collaborative engagement with stakeholders, ARAGORN seeks to provide tailored guidance for decision-making at local, national, and EU levels, fostering resilient restoration efforts and upholding long-term commitments to soil health and environmental stewardship.

Read the latest news on the ARAGORN project on our website.

Find out more about the ARAGORN project here, or contact Nathalie Briels for more information.

ARCHE Consulting participated in the European WASTE2FUNC Horizon 2020 project which investigated the conversion of agricultural and industrial food waste into ingredients for producing environmentally conscious cleaning agents and bioplastics.

A key aspect of the project was the development of a website/app to facilitate the efficient registration and collection of food waste streams by a waste collector from farms, restaurants, supermarkets, and primary crop processors.

Find out more about the WASTE2FUNC project on the website.

The QTOX doctoral network aims to advance mechanistic understanding and develop modeling tools that efficiently link conventional toxicity data with ecologically significant outcomes resulting from prolonged, fluctuating exposures to chemical mixtures. This endeavor will be realized through an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral research and training initiative involving 10 Doctoral Candidates, at different University across Europe. These candidates will characterise the mechanistic pathways from exposure to ecosystem-level impacts and devise models for predicting adverse effects across various levels of biological organization, within environmentally realistic scenarios.

News on this network can be found on the QTOX website.

Information on the different work packages within QTOX can be found here.

Find out more about the partners involved in QTOX here.

Eurométaux, in close collaboration with consortia, commodities associations, and companies, has developed a comprehensive "environmental exposure gathering program" to meet both current requirements and anticipated future demands in alignment with the Zero Pollution Ambition and biodiversity goals.

This program comprises two distinct "data gathering packs" aimed at addressing regulatory concerns, notably the Mixture Assessment Factor (MAF) proposed under REACH by the Chemical Strategy for Sustainability (CSS), and the Zero Pollution Action Plan (ZPAP)/MISA/REACH pack. In total, these packs encompass six projects, each contributing incrementally and systematically to demonstrate that metal environmental exposures pose no significant risk to human health or the environment.

More information on the MEED programme can be found on the website.

In the Life-project NARMENA (NAture-based Remediation of MEtal pollutants in Nature Areas), seven partners investigate nature-based remediation techniques on heavy metal polluted in soils and sediments. Focus is on non-invasive remediation techniques, such as constructed wetlands and bacteria-assisted phytoremediation, which not only treat the pollution, but also have an eye for nature preservation and water storage for flood risk management.

In this project, ARCHE Consulting is responsible for assessing the environmental impact of nature-based remediation approaches on the three test cases in Flanders. ARCHE Consulting will develop ecological models to assess how remediation impacts metal bioavailability and local wildlife at different trophic levels (macrophytes, benthic invertebrates, and pelagic invertebrates).

NARMENA is supported by the LIFE programme of the European Commission. Find out more about this project on the website of OVAM.

The CHROMIC project was funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program (Grant Agreement n° 730471). Securing a steady supply of chromium, vanadium, molybdenum and niobium is of strategic importance for the European industry.

These metals are fundamental for the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector and the innovation potential of high-tech sectors. Yet Europe remains highly dependent on import for these metals, leading to an inflexible and insecure supply. At the same time, a wealth of such metals is entrapped in industrial wastes or used in applications where their intrinsic value is not fully utilized.

The CHROMIC project aimed to unlock the potential of these resources. By smart combinations of existing methods and new technological innovations, CHROMIC developed new processes to recover chromium, vanadium, molybdenum and niobium from industrial waste. A range of chemical and physical methods was developed, tested and validated to extract valuable and critical metals from the initial slags in the most sustainable way: economically, environmentally and socially. ARCHE Consulting led the work package on the circular economy context and assessment of health, environmental and economic aspects and legal compliance.

ARCHE Consulting was involved in METGROW+, a project funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program (Grant Agreement n° 690088).

METGROW+ addressed bottlenecks in the European raw materials supply by developing innovative metallurgical technologies for unlocking the use of potential domestic raw materials. Within this project, both primary and secondary materials were studied as potential metal resources. Economically important nickel-cobalt deposits, low grade polymetallic wastes and iron containing sludges (goethite, jarosite, etc.) which were not yet being exploited due to technical bottlenecks were in focus. Concurrently, METGROW+ targeted innovative processes to extract important metals including Ni, Cu, Zn, Co, In, Ga, Ge in a cost-effective way. As project main output, a toolbox for metallurgical systems development was created in the project using new methods and combinations.

ARCHE Consulting was responsible in this project for the assessment of environmental impacts in an LCA approach and for health and safety risk assessment of the technologies and products studied.

The INRAM project (supported by the Belgian Science Policy BELSPO) aimed to assess in an integrated approach the risks of micropollutants to Belgian coastal zone ecosystems and man (2006-2010). ARCHE was responsible for the risk assessment part of the project.

The overall aims of the present project were to:

• Study the transfer and environmental concentrations of established priority compounds (cf. OSPAR, WFD and the UNECE lists) and emerging pollutants (e.g. pharmaceuticals) transfer via the three Belgian coastal harbours and the Scheldt, to coastal waters.

• Apply an unique combination of novel field and laboratory ecotoxicological and chemical techniques to establish both effects and food chain transfer of these chemicals.

• For the first time, establish the relationship between local occurrence of hazardous compounds, ecosystem health and potential human health effects, through the use of consumer organisms as test/monitoring species (e.g. commercial fish, crustacean and mollusc species).

• Develop and evaluate a framework and toolbox for monitoring the chemical anthropogenic pressures on coastal ecosystems and commercial marine products.

More information can be found at INRAM

GEochemical Mapping of Agricultural Soil (GEMAS) is a cooperation project between the Geochemistry Expert Group of EuroGeoSurveys (EGS) and Eurometaux.

The GEMAS project started in 2008 with the objective to produce harmonised soil geochemical data at the European continental scale, consistent with the EU REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals) Regulation. Since the start of the project ARCHE Consulting was involved in GEMAS for using the data in risk assessments for metals in soil at the European scale. The GEMAS project resulted in a harmonised monitoring dataset for both soil metal concentrations and some general soil properties in the topsoil of grassland (0-10 cm) and arable land (0-20 cm) across Europe. Such data provide a strong basis for taking into account the spatial variability of both exposure (metal concentrations) and effect concentrations (considering bioavailability through variation in soil properties) in a risk assessment for metals in soil, avoiding the need for (worst-case) assumptions in both respects and, thereby, increasing the transparency and reliability of the regional risk characterisation.

More information can be found at the GEMAS website. All data were published in two volumes of Chemistry of Europe’s Agricultural soils.

ARCHE Consulting cooperated as a subcontractor of Thomas More Kempen in the ASOPUS (Automated System fOr the Prediction & Use of (Q)SARs) project supported by IWT (Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie).

The goal of this project was to develop a user friendly, practical and freely available webtool to help the user to select the most applicable (Q)SARs for product development, product registration and product follow-up. The developed decision tree gives the user an idea of the reliability of the (Q)SARs of the substance and, if applicable, the tool also provides extra information to increase the reliability. This tool provides guidance for the correct use of (Q)SARs for toxicity production of chemical substances.

The EFSA Panel on Plant Protection Products and their Residues (PPR) started a revision of the existing Guidance Document on Persistence in Soil and proposed a tiered assessment scheme for the assessment of the two environmentally relevant concentrations (ERCs), i.e. the concentration in total soil and the concentration in pore water.  ARCHE Consulting together with the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy) and the Food and Environmental Research Agency (FERA, UK), is responsible for the scenario selection and scenario parameterization of permanent crops and row crops on ridges in support of predicting environmental concentrations of plant protection products and their transformation products in soil.

ARCHE Consulting was involved in the 4FUN project, funded under the EU 7th Framework Programme. The Cooperation Programme aimed to stimulate cooperation and improve links between industry and research within a transnational framework. 4FUN was funded in the theme environment. The aim of 4FUN was to shift from a ‘prototype’ (the 2-FUN tool, developed under the 6th Framework Programme) to a ‘standardised’ software. In particular, 4FUN aimed to:

• Innovate and exploit the 2-FUN prototype software

• Standardise the 2-FUN prototype software

• Transfer the improved tool to stakeholders

• Guarantee long-term technical and economic viability of the improved tool, called the MERLIN-Expo tool

The MERLIN-Expo tool contains a library of models, coupling environmental multimedia and pharmacokinetic models and is able to simulate transport of contaminants from the environment to the human body. More information is available on the project website.