10150158Next Generation Green Drinking Water ClarificationClosedGrant for R&DInnovate UKThe global water and wastewater treatment chemicals market, valued at $35.4 billion in 2023, is projected to reach $61 billion by 2032\. Water and wastewater treatment is crucial for drinking water, healthcare, and heavy industries. To treat water and wastewater, toxic chemicals remove suspended solids through flocculation, where particles aggregate into larger clusters for easy removal. However, current flocculants produce harmful neurotoxins and carcinogens, posing environmental risks that contribute significantly to sludge volume, which requires more processing and energy. High-quality, environmentally friendly flocculants could solve this challenge but are not available on a commercial scale. Competitors like SNF and BASF offer synthetic flocculants that lack sustainability, while others like Primex and Tidal Vision have limited market reach or cannot serve the drinking water and municipal wastewater sector. CuanTec aims to commercialise a novel, sustainable, non-toxic chitosan-based flocculant, to solve the industrial challenge. The 1kg-scale TRL4 prototype has the potential for use as a drinking water clarification agent but requires chemical validation at labscale and via in-field testing, to derisk 100kg/batch scale manufacture. This innovation supports a circular economy by producing usable sludge as fertilizer, meeting the biomanufacturing scope of this competition.