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Miquel Rovira is the director of the sustainability unit and Xavier Martinez is the manager of the division water technologies.
Eurecat and the sustainability unit
Eurecat is an important technological center in Spain (Second most important with regards to participation in European project), 450 people, 160 R&D projets. https://eurecat.org/en/eurecat/.
The Sustainability Unit of Eurecat is based in a 5-year-old building with 8.200 m2 devoted to research and development in the fields of materials and environmental research. The Sustainability Unit has the following facilities: fully instrumented bench-scale systems and pilot plants with different configurations for the assessment of several techonologies including: membrane technology, biological processes, advanced oxidation processes, ion-exchange processes, adsorption processes, etc.; The unit has extensive analytical laboratories with generic and specific equipment for water characterisation (ICP-MS, SEM, Ion Chromatography, C/N analyser, etc.); software for environmental modelling, life cycle assessment (LCA) and risk assessment studies; access to on-site pilot-testing and full-scale plants (e.g. municipal water and wastewater utilities) and access to technical services of Eurecat, with wide range of equipment and instrumentation. The Sustainability Unit is very well positioned at the international level in terms of collaborative projects, exchange of researchers and joint publications with prestigious institutions and companies within the water field (KWR, KWB, Cranfield University, TUDelft, etc.). The Unit also is part of numerous international networks and platforms such as Specialist Groups of the WssTP (co-coordinator of the industrial cluster), Water Reuse Europe (WRE), Netwerc-H20, Watershare, EIP Water, Catalan Water Partnership (CWP).
Miquel Rovira is a chemical engineer from the University of Barcelona and doctor of chemistry by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. He has been leading sustainability projects for over 15 years, first at CTM as Manager of the Environment Department, then as Director of the Sustainability Department at Eurecat when it merged with CTM.
Dr. Xavier Martinez is Chemical Engineer from the Technical University of Catalonia, Postgraduate of Environmental Management (2003) and Ph.D. in Environmental Chemistry by the same university (2008). His main research focus is separation technologies, especially membranes, for water treatment and valuable compound recovery. Currently, he is the head of water technologies subunit of the Sustainability Unit of CTM. His work focuses on coordinating a team of 10-15 researchers working in R+D+i projects on water technologies for both the private and public sectors. He has worked in projects for world-class companies from the water sector but also with companies in other sectors where separation technologies have a key role in their industrial processes: food, chemical, mining, etc. He has large experience in technology transfer projects with private companies focused on applying innovative technologies and strategies to increase their efficiency in the water cycle. He has participated in numerous applied research projects, in many cases as coordinator of a work package or the whole project. It is worth mentioning his activity as coordinator of the DEMOWARE (FP7 619040) and the Comunitat RIS3CAT Aigua (COM-16-1-0010) both projects with participation of research and industrial entities from the European and Catalan water sector, respectively. He is co-author of more than 20 peer-reviewed publications mostly related to application of innovative technologies for increasing the efficiency of both the urban and industrial water cycle. He has supervised 2 Ph.D. thesis (one on-going) focused on the evaluation of innovative membrane technologies including their coupling with biological processes such as anaerobic digestion.
