The Project team have currently just completed month 12 of the GasAbate N+ project.
WP1: Project Management, Dissemination and Communication.
Status: Ongoing throughout Year 1: management and communications, data management plan, risk management planning. Significant work carried out in this WP with weekly group meetings; monthly in-depth meetings with external parties. Promotion and dissemination materials generated in Year 1 include: infographics (attached), social media campaign (Twitter, LinkedIn), science animation (distributed widely on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter etc.), impact reports based on reactions from social media and dissemination of science animation. Project website was completed and all outputs are to feed into the D1: Life Cycle analysis on benefits of GasAbate N+ usage; Due in year 2 of the GasAbate N+ project.
WP2: Development of large-scale manufacturing.
Status: Majority complete, i.e. Product stability, shelf-life and storage conditions identified; final product specification and supporting documentation (ongoing); GasAbate product ready for field trials (Ireland, Europe, elsewhere), Raw materials suppliers and CMOs identified. All research fed into Deliverable 2.1 submitted on July 31st 2021.
WP3: Large-scale efficacy validation of GasAbate N+
Status: Farm-scale studies at Teagasc, Ireland are ongoing with dairy cattle using 660L of cattle slurry for treatment with the GasAbate N+ additive to reduce greenhouse gas and other emissions. Anaerobic digestion for energy outputs, as well as agronomic studies will be performed on-site. Discussions ongoing with another European dairy farm site for trial 2 to start in late 2021.
WP4: Regulatory Approval
Status: Research ongoing to feed into ECHA dossier for GasAbate (Tasks 4.1 - 4.8). All outputs in this including: physical and chemical properties, residues and efficacy profile, potential toxic and ecotoxicological effects and endocrine assessment and environmental fate and behaviour, were compiled into D6.1 submitted on July 31, 2021.
WP5: Commercialisation and internal growth strategy
Status: Our Business Development Director has been key in working on tasks 5.1 - 5.4; outputs have fed into a Year 1 Product Launch Plan under Milestone 5. Document available for review.
WP6: Ethics Requirements
Status: This WP was added by the EC upon approval of the GasAbate project, essentially requires that the project collate the items required to satisfy T4.1 Article 12(1) and Annex VI of REACH to collect and include in the registration dossier all physicochemical and environmental fate properties, as well as toxicity and eco-toxicity data of the substance. This task involved the compilation of required information and will produce the key deliverable of a dossier for submission to ECHA including: T4.5 Report on potential toxic effects: A thorough review was undertaken, and data compiled on the potential toxicity of short-term acute and longer-term environmental exposure collated by month 12. T4.6 Report on potential ecotoxicological effects: specific data on Gas Abate N+ was generated. Physicochemical data (T4.2) determines into which environmental compartments the chemicals will partition. Literature and data were used to assess toxicity using the approved read-across methodology. On the basis of all available data, ecotoxicity was classified for each end point. This data was inputted to D6.1: EPQ-Requirement No. 1 submitted to the EC on 31 July 2021.
The Deliverables and Milestones achieved in Months 1-12/year 1 of GasAbate N+ include:
M1: Develop and operate project website and social media.
M2: 1 tonne batch of product manufactured meeting standards of efficacy and shelf-life.
M5: GasAbate N+ product launch plan
D2.1: Large-scale manufacturing platform for GasAbate N+
D6.1: EPQ - Requirements No. 1
