Every day we use water for cooking, showering, washing clothes, or cleaning our homes. These are everyday and essential actions, but we often forget that everything we pour down the drain doesn’t simply disappear. In this way, many substances end up entering the water cycle and, over time, can return to the environment through it.
These substances are called emerging contaminants and include residues of pharmaceuticals, personal care products, cosmetics, pesticides, detergents, microplastics from synthetic clothing or packaging, and industrial compounds such as PFAS. They are often invisible and present in very low concentrations, yet they can accumulate and persist in the environment.
Their increasing presence in rivers, aquifers, and even drinking water is linked to the widespread use of chemicals in modern life and the limitations of conventional treatment systems in removing them.
Eurecat participates in the European project LIFE PRISTINE, led by ACCIONA, promoting sustainable solutions based on a combination of processes such as adsorption, nanofiltration, and advanced oxidation, integrated with intelligent monitoring and decision-support systems. Eurecat is specifically developing an innovative adsorption capsule system, which acts like a sponge to capture substances such as pharmaceuticals, PFAS, and microcontaminants.
