Zeolite in olive mill waste

Featuring Nikos Lygeros, a multi-talented researcher, a scientific collaborator with universities, a specialist adviser even to prime ministers and presidents, with expertise ranging from the use of zeolite in agriculture to contemporary geopolitical manoeuvres, we had the opportunity to speak for a short while on Thursday morning (4 August), in the welcoming surroundings of the Peripou multi-purpose venue. As the conversation progressed, we realised it could have gone on for hours, so we limited ourselves to topics such as hydrocarbons, geopolitics and Turkey. Mr Lygeros and his colleagues were in Agios Nikolaos to brief a group of producers on the ... Read more

If there is one major problem that zeolite can definitively solve through its application, it is the issue of goat manure for olive growers. Those unfamiliar with the difficulty of this issue, due to the odour and toxicity involved, cannot fully appreciate the pressures placed on olive oil producers when dealing with olive pomace. Whereas, with the use of zeolite, the solution is simple. And this is not merely an experimental stage that has taken place exclusively in a research laboratory. Following a lecture on zeolite in Nemea, we came into contact with three-phase olive oil mills. Specifically, for 500 ... Read more

In olive oil production in Crete, at the olive mill level, we also produce olive mill wastewater (“katsigaros”). The problem is that olive mill wastewater significantly affects soil properties, such as pH and electrical conductivity. Thus, rocks containing illite exhibit significant adsorption capacity in response to the phenols present in the olive mill waste. More generally, then, we have a problem of pollution from olive mill waste, because most olive oil producers do everything they can to dispose of their olive mill wastewater (“katsigaros”), causing environmental problems that are not only chemical in nature but also involve odour. The worst ... Read more