LIR Evolution is a partner of PMF, a non-profit scientific research organization from Banja Luka, with a portfolio of over 50 successful EU projects, each of which has left a concrete mark in practice in its country. They have recently successfully applied with partners and received funding for the project “ENV.Net Inclusion of Environmental Issues in the Western Balkans and Turkey in the EU Political Agenda” (ENV.Net Factoring of the Environmental Portfolio for the WB and Turkey in the EU Policy Agenda).
The overall goal of the project is to contribute to improving the implementation of environmental policies in line with EU standards, in terms of improving and strengthening interactions between individual environmental actors, such as NGOs / CSOs, media and decision makers, providing an opportunity to create better technical and financial environment for operation in each of the countries in the region, as well as the region as a whole. The project deals with environmental issues, ie the use of waste materials as raw materials for new processes (circular economy).
The beneficiaries of the project were young people, especially students of the Chemistry Study Program and the Secondary School of Technology from Banja Luka. Young people will benefit in the sense that through a series of study trips provided by the ENV.net project, they will visit successful examples of the industry that processes our natural raw materials. One of those visits is the recent visit to the “Bentoproduct” company that deals with the processing of bentonite from the site near Shipovo.
This deposit has about 3 million tons of reserves in which the percentage of montmorillonite as an active substance is very high (72-95%). The company “Bentoprodukt”, created as a greenfield investment that processes raw materials and produces specific products based on bentonite clay for various industries, which as such achieve much greater value in the international market than the export of raw bentonite. Currently, “Bentoprodukt” offers products for the foundry and construction industry, agriculture, food industry and a program of granular bentonite, which is mostly sold as a litter for pets.
It was extremely useful for students and pupils to see the concrete application of mechanochemistry, through the exchange of calcium ions with sodium ions in the structure of this mineral. Mechanochemistry is one of the relatively new areas of chemistry that needs special attention both in research and in the teaching process, enabling students and pupils to apply, from the aspect of environmental protection, acceptable technological procedures. With the mechanochemical approach, it is possible to perform chemical reactions without the presence of solvents, by applying a mechanical force to the chemical compounds in the solid state. Removal of often toxic solvents from the production process significantly reduces the cost of the process in which less wastewater is generated.