Project description
Sustainable solution for drinking water
As global water demand – for all uses – grows, we need more bottled water, desalination plants, water tanks and aquifers. But these solutions are unsustainable, generate pollution, and demand high capital expenditures and operating costs. While atmospheric water generators (AWGs) could be a promising alternative, they have not been sufficiently energy efficient until now. The EU-funded GENAQ project will bring to market AWGs that harvest the humidity in the air and produce condensed drinking water of high purity anywhere in the world with reduced energy consumption. The GENAQ solution produces water that fully complies with WHO standards and EU laws, eliminates the need for plastic bottles, and reduces energy consumption compared to existing solutions.
Objective
Our society is in front of numerous challenges, trying to meet world’s increasing water needs, as: plastic waste from bottled water, massive water demand, pollution of superficial waters, scarcity, sanitation or climate change. The main existing drinking water solutions, intending to overcome the low quality/scarcity of superficial fresh water sources, are bottled water, desalination plants, water tanks or aquifers. However, they all present significant gaps, as they are unsustainable, polluting or they require high CAPEX/OPEX. On the other hand, atmospheric water generators have a reduced cost/l and although, they constitute a promising, though yet unknown solution for the domestic sector, they currently lack energy efficiency, manufacturing capacity and solid sales network. These gaps generate significant market opportunities in the drinking water industry (expected to reach €1.2 trillion by 2025) for our innovation.
With GENAQ we aim to provide a drinking water generation solution wherever needed with zero environmental impact. Our AWGs are drinking water production units harvesting the humidity in the air to produce condensed drinking water of high purity anywhere in the world. We produce water with excellent properties, which fully complies with WHO standards/EU laws and is certified by EU health authorities. Our system decreases the use of plastic bottles, and achieves 50% more water production with 150% reduced energy consumption (0.19 kWh/l), compared to existing AWG solutions under the same conditions. Our AWGs can be autonomous, using sustainable power sources, resulting in almost zero OPEX. The successful commercialization of this project, based on the distributed production of water will reach a cumulative turnover of €135.6M by 2025. Based on our initial business plan, we estimate to sell over 17,000 units/year, create €21.61M cumulative profit, generate ROI of 3.68 and create in total 356 new jobs after five years of commercialization.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology environmental engineering water treatment processes drinking water treatment processes
- engineering and technology environmental engineering ecosystem-based management climatic change mitigation
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences hydrology
- engineering and technology chemical engineering separation technologies desalination
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences atmospheric sciences climatology climatic changes
You need to log in or register to use this function
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
H2020-EU.3.5. - SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme -
H2020-EU.2.3.1. - Mainstreaming SME support, especially through a dedicated instrument
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-SMEInst-2016-2017
See all projects funded under this callCoordinator
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
14900 CORDOBA
Spain
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.