Our EUGreenWeek 2025 Partner Event: “ZeroPollution4Water Cluster: Unlocking solutions: 32 Case Studies For Zero-Pollution drinking and groundwater” on 20 June 2025 offered inspiring insights into the achievements of the seven sister projects H2OforAll, intoDBP, Mar2protect, NINFA, ToDrinQ, UPWATER, and SafeCREW. The event hosted by Water Europe attracted 50 participants in the virtual room and additional 1067 people following the live stream. It centered around the launch of the Cluster Publication giving an overview about the 32 case studies.
Ater a welcome by Sofia Pachini (EC REA) and Andrea Rubini (Water Europe), Bertrand Vallet (DG RTD) introduced the political context and current legislative activities in the water sector on the EU level, with a strong focus on the Zero Pollution Action Plan, the European Green Deal and the Water Resilience Strategy.
Margarete Remmert-Rieper (Tutech Innovation GmbH, SafeCREW) shared the Cluster’s key insights from the case studies. She highlighted the common challenges of the case studies, the wealth of developed technological solutions and their replication potential. A special highlight of the event was the session “Bringing technologies to market uptake” which featured one technology per project in depth. SafeCREW partner Dr Peter A. Behnisch (BDS) presented the potential of non-animal, effect based methods (NAM/EBM) to evaluate the toxicology of complex mixtures, e.g. disinfection by-products in drinking water. Mathias Ernst, head of the coordinating DVGW Research Centre at TUHH, contributed SafeCREW’s insights to the panel discusion on “Turning research into action”. The event was rounded up by a summary of key take aways presented by Eike Thaysen (IDEA-CSIC).
We are very grateful for the Horizon Europe funding which made our research possible and for the support of European Research Executive Agency (REA) and European Commission (DG RTD).
If you missed the event watch the recording here or download the presentations:
Launch of the publication of the ZeroPollution4Water Cluster
- Insights from the inventory of 32 case studies in drinking groundwater – Margarete Remmert-Rieper (Tutech Innovation)
Bringing technologies to market uptake
- intoDBP: MITO3X® technology platform (adapted for drinking water) to simultaneously remove precursors and disinfect DW – Domenico Santoro (USP)
- ToDrinQ: Design support Tool for drinking water treatment plants – Dirk Vries (KWR)
- H20forALL: Central Knowledge Base – Maria Del Mar Blanes (IRIS Technology Solutions SL)
- UPWATER: Ceramic Passive Samplers – Evgeny Bulatov (IDAEA-CSIC)
- SafeCREW: Human cell-based, non-animal method (NAM) CALUX to test the toxicity of DBPs – Peter Behnisch (BioDetection Systems)
- MAR2PROTECT: Fert-root – Christoff Tutter (Stellenbosch University Water Institute)
- NINFA: Novel sensors for monitoring urban water quality – Martijn Wagterveld (Wetsus)
Closing Remarks
- Summary of key takeaways, future collaboration opportunities & call to action for policymakers, researchers, and industry leaders – Eike Thaysen (IDAEA-CSIC)
