Pedro Martins

Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo | IPVC · Departamento de Ciências de Engenharia e Tecnologia

The consumption of single-use plastics must be combated. In 2019 the European Parliament approved a Directive that prohibits, from 2021, the sale of single-use plastic within the European Union (EU) for products with viable alternatives (Directive (EU) 2019/904, of 5 June 2019). Member States will have to ensure the selective collection of at least 90% of plastic bottles by 2029, with a binding target of at least 25% recycled plastic for bottles starting in 2025. In 2030 all bottles plastic will have to have at least. 30% recycled material. The Academy is the priority space to fulfill the established goals. The IPVC intends to be inspiring in this matter, with the Refill_H2O Project (Grant number 10_SGS#1_REFILL_H20.).

Design of a Cyber-Physical System (CPS) for online monitoring and active mitigation of radon gas concentration inside granitic public buildings of the north region of Portugal. The project has 4 main outcomes: 1) to get an offline characterization of 30 public granitic buildings; 2) to design and develop a low-cost Radon probe for online monitoring; 3) to design and develop a Cloud-based WebSIG platform for online data processing and visualization of the indoor temperature, humidity, and radon gas concentration; 4) to get a fully functional online demonstrator based on the technologies developed in objectives 2) and 3) to monitor the 10 most problematic cases identified in objective 1). As a major societal challenge outcome, it is intended to promote the awareness of local authorities and population to the existent risk to public health due to radon exposure and therefore suggest appropriate mitigation strategies. The project is promoted by Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo and co-promoted by Instituto de Telecomunicações, Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave and BMViV, SA in partnership with the municipalities of Viana do Castelo and Barcelos, two local environmental agencies, Area Alto Minho and Agência de Energia do Cávado, and the technology company Digiheart, Lda. RnMonitor is funded by FEDER (Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional) through Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI), reference: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-023997.