ChemWater: the Final Conference

Water is vital for the sustainability and competitiveness of European industry and the economy at large. The chemical sciences and the chemical industry play a key role in driving future developments in sustainable water management. And the FP7 project ChemWater has spent the past 30 months mapping out what the chemical process industry needs to do to enable sustainable water management across a variety of economic sectors. The project's final conference takes place in Madrid on 1 -2 October.

The final ChemWater project conference will take place in combination with the ChemH2O event - the must-attend event of the year for anyone looking for a refreshing focus on driving innovation in water technologies and a global perspective on sustainable water management. The conference will specifically focus on accelerating and reconciling advances in leading edge knowledge with real applications addressing the current and future challenges.

The ChemWater final conference takes place in the Hotel Tryp Atocha, Madrid, Spain on 1 – 2 October as part of the ANQUE – DECHEMA co-produced conference on ‘Sustainable Water Management: Chemical Industry Setting the Pace.’

The two day event will feature a range of expert speakers from academia and industry covering a wide spectrum of perspectives on innovation in the sector. The conference provides an opportunity for participants to exchange new ideas and information on sustainable water management. Presentations will include new solutions, case studies and specific examples of success stories with a good mix of current state of the art and real cases.

The ChemWater conference includes sessions on:

• Water as resource: market, challenges, opportunities and technological future needs
• Chemistry and Chemical Technology for the municipal water cycle
• Chemistry and Chemical Technology for the industrial water cycle
• New Water Resources: reclamation, Recycling, Reuse and Desalination
• Integral Water Cycle: Emerging Challenges and Future Prospective

There will also be a round table discussion addressing the question: ‘How far we can go with sustainability?’

Indispensable resource
“Addressing water as an indispensable resource for the chemical process industry ensures the competitiveness of the European chemical process industry as a sustainable supply industry,” says Thomas Track of Dechema and project coordinator of ChemWater.

“The chemical process industry, due to its unique role as both a water consumer and a solution provider, acts as pilot sector. ChemWater has developed a long term vision and thematic strategy regarding the technologies and management developments needed to realize an eco-efficient water management in the chemical process industry.”

Details of the vision and strategy developed by ChemWater will be discussed at the conference and a final project brochure will be published soon.

ChemWater
The ChemWater FP7 project involved SusChem, the Water Technology Platform (WssTP) and nine other partners and has focused on new tools and methodologies, the identification of technology gaps and the consideration of the needs of other sectors that are required to reach a water sustainable process industry by 2050.

The objective of the ChemWater project was to build a vision and a roadmap on sustainable water use in the chemical industry that could be applied to other sectors. The developed roadmaps will support identification of technology and knowledge gaps and roadblocks, and will give direction to future challenges and opportunities. The roadmaps will provide a framework for coordination of development of activities across sectors.

ChemWater was launched in the summer of 2011 and is a coordination and support action project under FP7 involving a total of 11 partners. Its essential aim is to link process industry and water industry know-how to develop sustainable water resources.

The 11 international partners were drawn from the scientific, industrial and water utility communities and have developed a long-term strategy for sustainable industrial use of water in close coordination with existing initiatives and projects. A special focus was on the exploitation of the technological potentials in the fields of nanotechnology, materials and process innovation.

Relevant European Technology Platforms active in these sectors were involved to allow the identification of cross-industry synergies, build a roadmap for technologies and process development requirements and construct an action plan. At the same time, concepts for the rapid commercialization of innovations have been formulated.

ChemWater has provided significant support for the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Water and also has synergies with the proposed Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency (SPIRE) PPP.

Obviously the issue of sustainable water resources is a global issue. And the results of the ChemWater project will be disseminated to a wide range of EU and international networks and cooperation actions across the World.

More information
For more information take a look at the ChemWater website or for more details of the ‘Sustainable Water Management: Chemical Industry Setting the Pace’ conference you can contact the conference secretariat by email.