The Water Council recently announced the winners of its fall 2024 Tech Challenge, chosen by participating sponsors to help solve real challenges in the water sector.
The Water Council’s Tech Challenge connects water innovators with leading water technology companies, facilitating potential partnerships and helping new ideas and technologies gain exposure in the industry. The fall 2024 challenge sought solutions for the detection, treatment and removal of microplastics and nanoplastics.
Winners were selected from dozens of submissions from a 11 countries. The challenge’s sponsors, A. O. Smith Corporation, Badger Meter and Watts Water Technologies, chose the challenge topics and selected the winners to receive $10,000 prizes.
Lucendi Inc., based in Los Angeles, California, was selected for the microplastics detection category. The company develops AI-powered innovations for high-performance detection and characterization of micro-objects in liquids. Its Aqusens platform has been shown to automatically identify a variety of targets from microplastics to harmful organisms like giardia, cyanobacteria and toxic algae.
PolyGone Systems, based in Princeton, New Jersey, was selected for the microplastics treatment and removal category. A Princeton University spinout, the company has developed an affordable, portable and environmentally friendly filtration system that captures microplastics below 1 millimeter and can be applied to a wide range of water bodies, including rivers, lakes and wastewater effluents.
“Researchers are only beginning to understand the alarming scope and scale of microplastics in water, but the need for solutions is clear,” says Karen Frost, The Water Council vice president of economic development and innovation. “By connecting these innovators with water technology corporations, we help nourish solutions in the effort to fight water contamination.”
