New Water Projects Europe Post-Event Report now available
The post-event report of the third Water Projects Europe (WPE) event dedicated to Circularity in Industrial Water is now available, bringing together the main discussions, technological developments and lessons shared during the online event held on 28 May 2026.
Organised by Water Europe as part of RESURGENCE’s clustering activities, the event brought together the Horizon Europe sister projects RESURGENCE, CORNERSTONE and R3VOLUTION, alongside guest project MEloDIZER and the VesperX Water-Oriented Living Lab (WOLL).
Under the theme “Innovation in industrial water for a Water-Smart Society and Economy”, participants explored how industry can move beyond conventional wastewater treatment towards the recovery and reuse of water, heat, energy and valuable resources.
RESURGENCE: turning industrial wastewater into a resource
A central part of the event was dedicated to the progress being made within RESURGENCE.
Project Coordinator Xuefei Yang (CETIM) introduced RESURGENCE’s ambition to transform European process industries into wastewater resource-recovery facilities. She also presented the project’s “Seeds of Hubs for Circularity” approach, through which individual circular solutions are first demonstrated as “seeds” and progressively integrated into industrial pilot plants, laying the foundations for future industrial and urban-industrial symbiosis.
The RESURGENCE team also shared promising developments from its chemical and steel industry case studies.
André Torres-Pinto (University of Porto) presented the use of membrane distillation to recover water from highly saline industrial wastewater. Preliminary results showed water recovery of up to 42% after three hours of operation, while retaining calcium and magnesium ions in the concentrate for potential further valorisation.
Eugenia Quirós Díez (CETIM) presented an integrated strategy to recover valuable resources from steel-industry wastewater. The technologies investigated achieved phosphate recovery rates above 95% and enabled the recovery of approximately 50% of the magnesium and calcium contained in the wastewater.
Together, these results illustrate RESURGENCE’s wider vision: moving beyond pollution control to turn industrial wastewater into a source of reusable water, energy and valuable materials.
Building synergies for circular industrial water management
Presentations from CORNERSTONE, R3VOLUTION and MEloDIZER complemented the RESURGENCE results with approaches covering water reuse, membrane technologies, heat recovery, digital optimisation and resource valorisation.
The event also highlighted that technological innovation alone is not enough. Collaboration between research, industry, technology providers, public authorities and other stakeholders will be essential to overcome barriers to the wider implementation of circular water solutions.
The newly published WPE Post-event Report captures these discussions, project results and opportunities for collaboration, providing a valuable overview of current European innovation towards more circular and resilient industrial water management.
Read the full WPE Post-event Report.
