The Drinking Water Treatment Industry is subject to a stringent legislation regarding contaminants in water. Quality of water intended for human consumption and its monitoring are regulated under the drinking water directive 98/83/CE. Pesticides and heavy metals must be monitored and tested regularly with maximum allowable concentration of 0.1 μg/l for individual pesticides and 0.5 μg/l for the total amount of pesticides. The directive 2013/39/EU concerning emerging contaminants to be controlled in the field of water policy establishes what contaminants are identified for priority action at Union Level. Most important for the Drinking Water Treatment Industry is the cost associated to contaminants detection: approximately €160millions are invested in pesticide water analysis in Europe. Currently, a pesticide analysis costs an average of €300 per sample since it requires specific staff and high technology equipments. We have developed a prototype of BEEP-WATER biosensor technology able to detect and quantify on site a wide range of chemical contaminants including pesticides, heavy metals and emerging contaminants in water saving the cost associated to current laboratory analysis. The objective of our current project is the industry adaptation and implementation in the Drinking Water Treatment Industry of BEEP – WATER early warning system as a real quick and inexpensive alternative to current contaminant analysis systems in water.

Natural resources are being exhausted due to the great demand of their services and the insufficient actions taken for their preservation. Against this background, the use of waste components from industrial activities as raw materials to obtain high value-added products is of great relevance. Lignin from pulping process is present all over Europe and represents a big source of underexploited material. There is an estimated 70 million tonnes of lignin available from pulping processes worldwide, but much of this is not isolated but burned onsite to provide steam for heat and power production. Until now only about 2% of the lignins available in the pulp and paper industry is commercially used comprising of about 1,000,000 tons/year lignosulphonates originating from sulphite pulping and 104,000 tons/year of kraft lignins produced in the kraft process