The project AQUAEra - Turning Urban Wastewater into Clean Water and Renewable Energy in an Era of Increasing Water Stress has secured €946,359 under the Water4All 2024 Joint Transnational Call. This total amount is funded by four national funding agencies from the participating countries, with the Portuguese contribution supported by FCT.

The international consortium includes FEUP (Portugal), CSIC (Spain), NRC (Lithuania), and KU Leuven (Belgium), with strong participation from LSRE-LCM/ALiCE. The project is coordinated by Maria José Sampaio (PI) and involves ALiCE researchers António Azevedo Ferreira (LEPABE), Adrián M. T. Silva and Ana Rita Ribeiro.

AQUAEra aims to convert urban wastewater into clean water and renewable energy, strengthening European efforts to address water scarcity and advancing the transition toward sustainable circular water-energy systems.

André Torres Pinto, researcher at LSRE-LCM/ALiCE, was a guest of 90 Segundos de Ciência (Antena 1) on November 11, 2025.

André developed, during his PhD, nanomaterials with catalytic properties to remove organic pollutants found in agro-industrial wastewater and urban effluents. His work focuses on eliminating phenolic compounds from the olive oil industry and pharmaceutical residues frequently detected in municipal wastewater.

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