News

Z-ONA4LIFE is building a technology facility for transforming hazardous aluminium salt slag into high-value synthetic zeolite. This new zeolite is already being tested against mining effluents, leachates, livestock waste, and gas streams. The study “Adsorption of Safranine-T dye using a waste-based zeolite: Optimization, kinetic and isothermal study”, co-authored by Z-ONA4LIFE partners from CSIC, adds effluents from textile industry to that list.

Europe produces millions of tonnes of industrial waste every year - much of it hazardous, most of it still treated as a disposal problem rather than a resource. That's the starting point of Z-ONA4LIFE, a LIFE project that produces a high-value material with applications ranging from gas purification to wastewater treatment.

In June 2026, the Z-ONA4LIFE consortium gathered at Alusigma's facilities in Gijón, Asturias (Spain), to mark a significant moment in the project's journey: the near-completion of the first Z-ONA4LIFE pilot plant, built in close collaboration with engineering partners Ferrosadim and INDEREN.

A new paper co-authored by IETcc-CSIC, the coordinator-partner of Z-ONA4LIFE, demonstrates that synthetic Linde Type-A zeolite produced from a hazardous industrial aluminium waste achieves near-quantitative removal of toxic metal ions from mine-impacted water - a direct scientific validation of the circular production model at the heart of the project.

The findings, recently published in the journal Environmental Technology & Innovation, evaluate the efficacy of zeolites synthesised from hazardous aluminium industry waste in treating soils contaminated with heavy metals and organic pollutants.

On 19 June 2025, the Z-ONA4LIFE project convened a mid-term workshop in Gijón, Spain, bringing together a diverse group of stakeholders from industry, academia, and policy to discuss the project's progress and broader implications for circular economy innovation in Europe.

This year, the Z-ONA4LIFE project is going to be part of the EU Green Week, with its workshop on Driving Circular Economy through end-of-waste status and zeolite innovation.