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Resedaercvhelo&pment

Multifunctional structure made
with seagrass wrack:
A patent of the GE.RI.N project

ENEA and the Egadi Islands Marine Protected Area (MPA) have completed some experiments in order to recover
and use seagrass wrack for the restoration of emerged and submerged coastal areas in Favignana Island (Western
Sicily, Italy). A multipurpose facility built with beached biomass, comprising a casing made of biocompatible fibre
and filled with wrack harvested from the beaches, has been implemented. The canvas has a mesh greater than
a specific dimension, and biocompatible fibres have undergone transverse and longitudinal tensile strength.
It is a structure made of natural materials and eligible for multi-purpose applications, that is used for the realization
of “mats” stuffed with seagrass wrack, collected from emerged beaches. The results of such realisation under
the GE.RI.N project were the increased carrying capacity of the beaches as the removal of beached biomass
and the disposal of the structures on rocky shores enhance the available area for tourist recreation and bathing.
The structures are also suitable as a substrate for the re-establishment of seagrass shoots on the sea bottom, which
is essential for maintaining the presence of the meadow to reduce coastal erosion. As part of the GE.RI.N project,
the patent number RM2014A000151, registered on March 24, 2014, has been deposited and is now available
for licensing. A design implementation of the structure is under development in collaboration with the University
of Rome Sapienza – Architecture Science in Product Design, as part of a degree thesis project, titled Medonia

DOI 10.12910/EAI2015-074

QS. Cappucci, C. Creo, V. Cristallo, C. De Simone, S. Donati, M. Russo, I. Simoncelli

Introduction

The carrying capacity of pocket beaches can composite and thermo-acoustic insulating material
be significantly influenced by the presence of [6] [7].
infrastructures, waste and other human activities The schematic flow diagram reported below
on shore. In addition, during the winter, beached (Figure 1), illustrates the possible management
seagrass biomass (seagrass wrack) is deposited options of Posidonia oceanica wrack, emerged
along the coasts: poorly tolerated by tourists, it during the project POSIDuNE [8] and selected by
is very often removed during the summer [1] [2]. the European Union as a “Best Practice” [9].
Many national and international projects have
recently investigated the possibility and feasibility Contact person: Sergio Cappucci
to reuse seagrass wrack to avoid disposal of this sergio.cappucci@enea.it
natural bio-resource into landfill [2] [3] [4]. Many
industrial applications have been investigated by
several authors to produce cellulose [5], green

83EAI Energia, Ambiente e Innovazione 4/2015