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Join us on Monday, October 6 and Tuesday, October 7, 2025 at De Harmonie in Leeuwarden for the Wetsus Congress 2025 – a two-day event where scientific excellence meets relevance in water technology. Under the theme “Efficiency in Innovation”, we bring together global experts from academia, industry, government, and young talent to explore cutting-edge solutions that accelerate sustainable water tech development.
The congress will feature inspiring keynote sessions, interactive discussions, and in-depth sessions covering the latest innovations, challenges, and opportunities in water technology.
With a unique mix of science and entrepreneurship, the event offers a platform for knowledge exchange, idea generation, and strategic networking within the heart of Europe’s leading water technology hub, Leeuwarden.
Chair: Johannes Boonstra, Executive Board Wetsus
Marcel Mulder Award Ceremony
Chair: Anne-Marie Spierings, Chair Supervisory Board UPPWATER
This session explores how UPPWATER already sparked a range of early-stage innovations aimed at addressing sustainable water challenges. The UPP Water initiative was founded in 2022 and is a key pillar of the Dutch Growth Plan. This program aims to strengthen the innovation, international position and growth of the Dutch water technology sector. UPPWATER catalyzes new ideas, collaborative approaches and fresh perspectives that pave the way for long-term impact in water technology.
Contributors:
(more about UPPWATER)
Chair: prof.dr.ir. Cees Buisman, Executive Board Wetsus
Keynote: dr. Slawomir Porada, Associate Professor Energy & Materials Transition/Technology Adviser, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology
This session explores the potential of steering soil microbiomes to enhance soil multifunctionality, a key challenge for sustainable agriculture, particularly within the context of the soil-water nexus. The interplay between soil biology and water dynamics is increasingly important as climate change places additional stress on already vulnerable systems. Understanding and managing the soil microbiome is therefore critical not only for improving soil health, but also for maintaining water retention, filtration, and availability in agricultural landscapes.
We will focus on the potential of engineering nature-based solutions, such as organic amendments or carbon-based inputs, to influence microbial communities and key soil-water functions.
Join us to explore whether we can engineer soil microbiomes that support both productivity and ecosystem functionality and what the implications are for agriculture.
Tackling PFAS challenges with technology innovations and creating market opportunities
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have emerged as one of the most persistent and pressing environmental contaminants, raising significant concerns for public health, water quality, and regulatory compliance. This session will explore the current landscape of PFAS regulations and market demands, followed by an overview of existing technologies for PFAS removal and destruction, as well as of the available emerging and innovative technological solutions aimed at effectively addressing PFAS contamination. Together, these aspects bring an integrated perspective on the PFAS challenge, offering insights from regulatory, technological, and market viewpoints to inform researchers, policymakers, and industry stakeholders on accelerating effective discussions and sustainable solutions.
In this session we present the newest insights in development and optimization in the production of drinking water. We show the latest data on the role of the microbiology in well-known processes like slow sand filtration to improve the process performance. Additionally, microbial dynamics in newly developed purification trains for production of drinking water from saline sources are presented. Finally, the consequences of different treatments on processes like sedimentation and biostability during transportation in distribution networks are discussed.
Chair: prof. dr. Johannes Vrouwenvelder, KAUST, Saudi Arabia and dr. Inez J.T Dinkla, Wetsus
Electrodialysis as a sustainable method for selective separations of many environmental and industrial streams is growing rapidly in importance in the Dutch water technology landscape, with many scientific questions posed and sometimes resolved. This session is with special dedication to dr. Joost Veerman, who played a pivotal role in the scientific advancement of electrodialysis and its sister technology, reverse electrodialysis as the key technology to harvest unlimited energy from the sea. Many of us are inspired every so many weeks with a new edition of REDnews, the brainchild of Joost. In this session scientific puzzles relating to electrodialysis with technological relevance are put forward to inspire the audience. Special attention is given to the guest of honor, Joost Veerman.
Chair: prof.dr.ir. Cees Buisman, Executive Board Wetsus
keynote: dr. Bram Kerssemakers, Program Manager Protein port
Micropollutants pose a severe threat to our groundwater system. To be able to protect our groundwater system, we need a better understanding of where these pollutants enter how they spread and can be removed. This session, an activity of the EU project NINFA, brings together experts who are exploring innovative ways to trace and treat organic pollutants in run-off water, using the power of microbial communities to naturally break them down. Field studies from the Netherlands will shed light on groundwater–surface water dynamics and their impact on pollutant transport and take a closer look at PFAS behavior in Dutch aquifers through real-world monitoring and modeling. Join us for a deep dive into the science driving sustainable groundwater protection.
As the global shift toward alternative proteins accelerates, the water implications of this transition are increasingly critical. This session explores the intersection of protein innovation (plant-based, microbial, and cultivated) and water technology.
Experts will discuss the advances in water reuse and treatment in protein production, water footprints of emerging protein sources and strategies to ensure resource-efficient scale-up. Join us to examine how smart-water solutions can drive a more resilient and sustainable protein future.
Chair: dr. Raquel Gonçalves Barbosa, Wetsus and dr. ir. Ruben Halfwerk, Wetsus
Sludge dewatering remains a significant challenge for wastewater treatment facilities worldwide. The dryness level of dewatered sludge directly impacts operational costs, particularly in transportation and downstream processing. Polyelectrolytes (PE), or flocculants, are widely used in this process but contribute significantly to treatment costs and environmental footprints. The increasing consumption of PE and concerns about its climate impact and potential toxicity have driven the search for more natural and biobased alternatives. However, replicating the performance of current PE types with natural materials has proven difficult and costly. Also, due to resource recovery initiatives the composition of sludges is changing and this impacts dewatering performance. So high time to resourcefully find new approaches via a better understanding of the dewatering process!
This session delves into the science and application of nanobubble technology, with a focus on intrinsic nanobubbles—nanoscale gas structures that can form spontaneously in water upon a pH increase and play a critical role in interfacial processes and gas solubility. It also covers the enhancement of nanobubble properties through the use of magnetic fields, which can improve bubble stability, reactivity, and potential for targeted applications. The session further highlights practical implementations of nanobubble technology, including the advanced systems which are used in sectors such as agriculture, aquaculture, and water purification.
To fully utilize the electrical energy, generated with renewable energy sources like windmills and photovoltaic panels, there is a strong need that excess electrical energy is stored. Storage of electrical energy at a large scale can be done for instance in chemical energy such that later this chemical energy can be used again to generate for instance electrical or thermal energy. A well-known example of this conversion step is the electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. Hydrogen gas can be stored and used later. Because large amounts of renewable energy are generated with windmills parks positioned at sea, electrolysis at sea is not straightforward as pure water must be made first out of seawater. Although desalination of seawater of seawater into pure water is a mature technology, it cannot be done with maintenance. Maintenance, with personnel that is needed to operate, will increase the cost drastically. Therefore, the question arises if direct seawater electrolysis is possible without desalinating seawater first to ultra-pure water. So far, direct seawater electrolysis introduced numerous problems like inorganic scaling at the cathode, chlorine evolution at the anode as well as biofouling and corrosion of non-noble metals.
In this session, different specialists will discuss the green hydrogen production from different perspectives. Dr. Adriaan Jeremiasse of Magneto Special Anodes will discuss the chlorine and oxygen evolution at Dimensionally Stable Anodes and how to suppress chlorine evolution in salty water.
During this networking reception, the best posters will be announced!
Abstract
The realisation of a circular economy has thus far unfolded under the assumption that it would fit within existing economic arrangements. In practice, we witness many circular initiatives struggling to give shape to their ambitions, let alone develop to maturity. These past months, various material recycling organisations terminated their activities, seeing virgin alternatives from other parts of the world flooding the market at prices against they cannot compete. If the transition towards a circular economy (i.e. an economy of value preservation) is to be taken seriously, a new perspective on value in our economic system seems unavoidable, as the rewriting of the rules of the economic game. At this moment, current perceptions of value stand in the way of this transition both at micro as well as macro levels. Several contours for a collective exploration of new directions of value and economic configuration that foster circular transition will be addressed.
Abstract
In his key note he will conclude after a life of innovations that it is impossible that humanity will stay within the save planetary boundaries with innovation only. We should be more critical about the behaviour of the rich population in the world and more critical about new innovations that prove to be dangerous, like the PFAS crisis shows at this moment. In his keynote he will investigate how to look at the world that can stay within the save planetary boundaries, how should we change ourselves? It is clear if we only talk about the words of science and systems we miss the essential words of how we should cooperate and change ourselves. And his search for coherent save innovations. Which innovations will be save and will lead to a fair and sustainable world? And will lead to a world we want to live in.
Abstract
There is a growing number of new sustainable, inclusive, cohesive, participatory, just and humane economic models. A possible next step in the discourse about them is the comparative analysis in order to find out key commonalities, potential synergies, and “requirements” for a future-fit economic model. The author and initiator of the Economy for the Common Good provides an overview of these „new sustainable economic models“ and compares them according to underlying values, principles, and practical ways of implementation. The keynote addresses the cooperative spirit of the conference and prepares the ground for its public highlight on the eve of June 3rd, the round table with representatives of diverse future-fit economic models.
Abstract
The scientific debate on whether economies should always continue to grow increasingly becomes a political and societal debate. On the one hand further growth for the most affluent countries seems neither possible nor valuable, but on the other hand there is still lack of understanding and knowledge what a non-growing economy should look like and could best be governed. In this lecture we discuss various policy measures that can be realistically implemented, take into account government finances and aim at a higher quality of life despite a non-growing economy.
Abstract
Democracy is under pressure, and less and less able to stir the economy into a sustainable direction. Therefore, to stabilize democracy and to make possible the socio-ecological transformation of the economy, democratic principles need to be implemented directly in the economy. This is not only a matter of morality, but also has practical advantages. Democratizing the economy can increase legitimacy and take advantage of the “knowledge of the many” to accelerate the transformation. Democratic practices, especially deliberation, allow bringing together different forms of knowledge, which is crucial for the local implementation of principles of social and ecological sustainability. This talk explores what this idea means in more concrete terms, from democratic participation in the workplace to the democratization of time.
Abstract
Over the past decades, markets have conventionally been seen as the best instrument to stimulate economic growth and enhance prosperity and well-being. The automatic link between markets and economic growth is increasingly questioned, however, as well as the automatic link between economic growth and enhancement of well-being. This has led to attempts to capture well-being development more directly than through GDP per capita figures and has produced a more variegated picture of well-being growth. Also, this has led to a shift of focus to other coordination systems than the market, as primarily the state but increasingly also the association. Analyses of the historical record suggest that especially the latter could be a vital component in future well-being.