The ReWaCEM project aims at reducing water use, wastewater production, energy use, valuable metal resource recovery and water footprint by between 30-90% in the metal plating, galvanizing and printed circuit board industry. In order to achieve these goals, ReWaCem will adopt two cutting edge membrane technologies suitable for the requirements of closed material cycles approaches and recovery concepts in metal processing industry: Diffusion Dialysis (DD) and Membrane Distillation (MD) as an integrated hybrid process. This combination of existing technologies will be adapted to fit the requirements of 4 pilot demonstration sites in representative industrial applications of the metallurgical industry in order to evaluate the accomplishment of the ReWaCEM goals. Through the evaluation of the demonstration a highly attractive technological solution for low energy wastewater treatment will be available to be entered into the large and growing market of metal processing. This market will profit significantly from the technological outcome of the innovation action, with cost savings and environmental benefits as relevant rewards. In order to maximise impact, the project consortium was selected carefully to represent all relevant stakeholders in the quadrant of end users, scientific partners, associations and decision makers and SMEs. The consortium will establish a dissemination & exploitation board that will create a substantial network of interest groups from agencies, industry, research SMEs and research centres as well as universities. The successful exploitation of the results will lead to a post project up-scaling of the technology and a step by step market introduction. Part of ReWaCEM will be to mobilise all relevant stakeholders into promoting innovative membrane solutions for industrial water and resources management, leading to the effective implementation of European directives and policies while creating market opportunities for European industry and SMEs.

The REvivED water project will establish electrodialysis (ED) as the new standard providing a source of safe, affordable, and cost-competitive drinking water, using less than half the energy required by state-of-the-art Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants. The innovations of the project constitute a technology platform with a very wide field of potential applications. All components and systems have reached at least TRL4 and will be further developed reaching at least TRL7. The main focus of the project will be on the following applications: 1. A simplified ED system that can be used for brackish water desalination (8 pilots in developing countries) or for tap-water softening (2 pilots in Germany and the Netherlands). 2. A multistage ED system for industrial-scale seawater desalination, which will be demonstrated to reach energy consumption as low as 1.5 kWh/m3 (1 pilot in the Netherlands) 3. Combinations of the multistage ED system with the latest salinity gradient power systems (Reverse ElectroDialysis - RED), which can further reduce energy consumption for seawater desalination to the region of 1 kWh/m3 (1 pilot in the Netherlands) 4. The versatile nature of the developed innovations will be demonstrated by testing their combinations with Reverse Osmosis (RO) systems (1 pilot in Spain). This will allow initial market introduction, without the need to replace the extensive RO infrastructure. The pilot systems in developing countries will be located in critical areas where the project partner PHAESUN has local offices in Africa (Eritrea, Ivory Coast, Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia), Asia (Dubai, and India) and Latin America (Panama). The consortium brings together leading partners covering the whole value chain and ensuring exploitation of the results. It is clearly industry driven, and it gives European industry the chance to take the lead of the ED revival and face the competition from the US that is also actively pursuing this important growth market.