Boost Your Water Technology
Fall 2026 Tech Challenge
Chemical-Free, Low-Cost Aqueous Sensing
The Water Council is seeking sensing tech that works in real water, needs no consumed reagents, and is priced for distributed deployment vs. centralized lab use.
DEADLINE: Oct. 2, 2026
Join us Sept. 15 for an informational webinar.
Apply now at F6S.
What We're Looking For:
- Technologies at TRL (Technology Readiness Level) 3+
- Chemical/reagent-free: no consumed wet chemistry, dyes or cartridges for ongoing operation.
- Electrochemical, optical/spectral, chemiresistive and photonic approaches in scope; reagent-minimizing approaches considered if justified.
- Low-cost: designed for distributed, multi-point deployment. State target unit cost and basis.
- Aqueous: validated (or credible path) in real water matrices, not just buffer/synthetic. Describe matrix testing to date.
Eligible and Ineligible Solution Areas
Parameters of interest (not exhaustive): disinfection residuals (chlorine, chloramine); nitrate/nitrite/nutrients; heavy metals (lead, copper, cadmium); PFAS or surrogate signals; microbial/biological indicators; general parameters (turbidity, conductivity, pH, COD/BOD, TOC) where innovation is cost/reagent elimination; novel parameters with utility relevance. Drinking water distribution, premise plumbing, and wastewater/sewer applications all welcome.
Out of scope: Predictive monitoring, digital twins, and modeling/inference proxies for direct measurement.
