Tech Challenge Winners Address Pressing Water Challenges
July 8, 2025

The Water Council announces the winners of our spring 2025 Tech Challenge, chosen by our sponsors to help solve real challenges in the water sector: Nafura Advanced Technologies and Segura Water, both based in the United Kingdom, and Atkinson Lab, part of Princeton University in New Jersey.

The Water Council’s Tech Challenge connects water innovators with leading water technology companies, facilitating potential partnerships and helping new ideas and technologies gain exposure in the industry.

Winners were selected from dozens of submissions from 11 countries. The challenge’s sponsors – A. O. Smith Corporation, Badger Meter, Watts Water Technologies and our newest sponsor, Xylem – chose the challenge topics and selected the winners to receive $10,000 prizes:

• Sensors for biological organisms and disinfectant byproducts: Atkinson Lab, part of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute at Princeton University. The Atkinson Lab develops biohybrid devices for sensing small-molecule chemicals and biological macromolecules (e.g., proteins, RNA and DNA) and converting binding events into electrical signals.
• Removal of organic contaminants from water: Nafura Advanced Technologies, based in Stoke-on-Trent, U.K. Nafura, in partnership with Deep Science Ventures, is transforming industrial wastewater management with a plasma-based system that delivers industrial-capacity water treatment in one-thousandth the footprint and half the cost of traditional methods.
• “Lab on a chip” for water and wastewater applications: Segura Water, based in London. Segura transforms how utilities detect heavy metals in drinking water with a rapid, low-cost tool that provides lab-quality results in under five minutes right in the field.

“We know contaminants such as PFAS, heavy metals and biological organisms require a unique approach to water and wastewater treatment,” said Katie Kollhoff Mouat, director of innovation programs at The Water Council. “We’re proud to help uncover the next generation of solutions and connect them with the networks and resources they need to grow.”