EUREKA– Seven ACQUEAU Labels

January 2011, Brussels,

ACQUEAU[1], the EUREKA Cluster for Water, has labeled 7 Projects from its first call. After receiving 24 project proposal outlines, ACQUEAU is proud to announce the award of the ACQUEAU Label to 7 consortia committed to developing projects within the next 5 years.

THE EUREKA LABEL

The EUREKA ‘Label’ is awarded to project proposals with the potential of developing breakthrough innovations. It allows the winning consortium companies to apply for national funding in support of the labeled project; the label is an assessment of quality, economic interest and viability of the projects.

TWO PROJECTS FOR NEW MEMBRANE APPLICATIONS

Membranes are used for filtration of water in many drinking water treatment processes, industrial water treatment and for depollution of waste water.

MICRODISC is a filtration project for water reuse and drinking water production. It implements low-energy and cost-effective technologies for removing parasites and turbidity.

LEMEDISrelates to the industrial development of alternative technologies for desalination; whilst proven as energy-efficient at lab scale, membrane distillation is still not available for industrial use. LEMEDIS will offer a more affordable and less energy-intensive desalination process.

FIVE  PROJECTS FOR  BETTER WATER MANAGEMENT

For Real Time System Management there is a need to use adapted and miniaturized sensors, high performance communication, data links and sophisticated software.

The five projects aim at preventing risks and increasing security and safety of water supply and sanitation.

OPRISMA and SWARM  target improving resources management, implementing new sensors and developing suitable data collection and adapted software.

DUTS deals with controlling water quality and water flow.

BLUE BOX TOOL focuses on monitoring of water related security issues.

AUTOMAQUA aims to develop automation technologies for wastewater treatment plants.

Improved information systems contribute to  better management of water resources over all the water cycle and increase efficiency, safety and security.

INNOVATIVE AND HIGH-QUALITY PROJECTS

For this first call, ACQUEAU is particularly pleased by the high quality of the proposals. The project consortia involved 12 countries and 48 partners affirming the value of multi-national collaboration. SMEs and Research Institutes are well represented leading more than half of the projects. The total value of the 7 projects is ~23 M€; the mean value of projects is ~3 M€ and duration ~3 years.

Call 3A: Sustainable Wastewater Treatment

Call 3B: Follow- up from 1^st call :

        - Membrane Technologies

        - Real Time System Management

Press Release Archive

Press Release Calls 1 and 2, 30th September 2010