Contamination of drinking-water is an urgent global health concern, preferentially in rural areas, and is highly related to the poor and vulnerable population. This challenge requires a single, easy to handle and low-cost solution able to decrease the levels of pathogens, chemical and radiological hazards to tolerable levels in a single and simple pot (from a sorbent on a glass to a more powerful cold plasma technology). Furthermore, climate change, natural disasters and the actual war in Ukraine urges having available fast effective solutions to avoid the spread of waterborne epidemies and being exposed to unsafe levels of heavy metals or hazardous organic pollutants. The complexity of such contamination including organic/inorganic species, cationic/anionic species, different size and shape, etc., requires a multicomponent system and/or device, in the form of a tablet or monolith, able to tackle specifically each of these hazards at once. In addition, this multicomponent system, besides tacking the problem in water, can be prepared and/or modified to be biocompatible so that it can also be used as a dietary complement to mitigate/remove all these hazards in human body (as enterosorbent). Based on these premises, the main goal of the CLEANWATER project is the design and development of multicomponent sorbents prepared by the combination of safe materials (e.g., activated carbons, bone-chars, pectins, among others) able to eliminate these contaminants in drinking water in a single pot or in combination with cold plasma for complete destruction. Furthermore, this sorbent will be modified accordingly to be applied in human body as a dietary complement to remove these species once assimilated in the body.

This project aims to stimulate intersectoral and international collaboration within Europe and with an ICPC country, Kazakhstan, in the area of novel nanoporous and nanostructured adsorbents for the treatment of very serious health conditions associated with acute and chronic exposure to external radiation and uptake of heavy metals and radiation as a consequence of accidental, occupational or deliberate activities and events. This can dramatically lower the quality of life of the people affected and at present the treatment available is costly and inefficient. Radioactive contamination is a particularly serious problem in two of the countries participating in this project, namely, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, on large territories of the Chernobyl zone and around Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, respectively. A large number of people are affected by living in the areas with elevated level of radioactivity with uncertain long-term consequences to their health and the health of future generations. The expected impact of the project results is development of efficient and cost-effective methods of protection of first responders, population and cancer patients treated with radiotherapy from elevated doses of external and incorporated radiation and for occupational health protection of personnel working and the population living in areas contaminated with heavy metals.