Graphene Flagship visits Aquatech in Amsterdam

Earlier this month, Graphene Flagship experts met with over 15 000 water professionals at the Aquatech tradeshow in Amsterdam, which also gathered around 550 exhibitors and 200 speakers.

"Aquatech was a great experience, we met people from all over the world covering the value chain of water technology. The ones entering our booth were genuinely interested in graphene filters, telling us its long awaited and the future of water purification", says Sofia Järbur, Graphene Flagship Marketing Coordinator.

As Europe consumes billions of cubic metres of water each year, the question of water quality is always high on the EU Commission’s agenda. Here, the Graphene Flagship’s GRAPHIL Spearhead Project can play an important role. Led by Graphene Flagship Partner Medica, Italy, GRAPHIL develops compact water filters based on graphene and by innovative graphene solutions, water purification can soon be much more effective

"Our GRAPHIL project aims to put graphene inside hollow fibre membrane (HFMs) for water filtration. The goal is to have one step filtration, combining absorption and sieving filtration by hollow fibre. The addition of graphene can remove emerging contaminants like antibiotics, pesticides, heavy metals, drugs and many different compounds from water", says Medica's Letizia Bocchi, leader of the Graphene Flagship Spearhead Project GRAPHIL, while attending Aquatech.

When will the graphene filters be on the market?

"We are launching the first real size prototype filters, with polysulfone graphene oxide composites. We expect to launch them on the market during 2022. And then by the end of 2023 we will also have polyethersulfone graphene oxide composite available", concludes Bocchi.