Fundación Centro de las Nuevas Tecnologías del Agua (CENTA)

The Centre for New Water Technologies (CENTA) is a research institution promoted by the Regional Ministry of the Environment of the Regional Government of Andalusia with the support of other public and private bodies from the water sector. The mission of CENTA is to contribute, through the generation and dissemination of excellence and knowledge, to the efforts made by the public administrations, research centres and companies to make Andalusia a reference point in the field of water. In that sense, CENTA manages an Experimental Treatment Plant located in Carrión de los Céspedes (Seville). This technological platform of 41,000 m2 of surface, consisting of a large technology pool containing the most sophisticated systems together with the most natural ones, supports the CENTA in its research activity, and other scientific agents as well as companies working in the water sector. In addition, a large number of on-site treatments for single-houses and small communities have been checked and validated before their commercial launch. In fact, CENTA is a Notified Body NB2236 for the EN 12566-3:2006+A1:2009 “Small wastewater treatment systems for up to 50 PT” (annex B).

To deal with the complexity of the water issue and adequately to meet the technological needs from a multidisciplinary approach, the CENTA has orientated its R&D&I activities towards three fields of knowledge: wastewater technology; ecosystem water management and water quality. In addition, CENTA promotes the knowledge and technological transference by its participation in cooperation projects and training programs.

CENTA R&D activities have been focused on the determination of designing, maintenance and operational parameters of different wastewater and reuse technologies. For this purpose various systems at medium-pilot-demonstration scale have been operated providing a wide range of R&D possibilities. This fact has allowed CENTA to improve its capacity to communicate and share such knowledge and the experience gained to other regions, taking part in several European projects in the framework of different calls: INTERREG III-B Programme (DEPURANAT and ICREW), INTERREG II-A and III-A Programme (PROTTMA-1 and PROTTMA-2), INTERREG IVSUDOE Programme (WAT), FP6 (MELIA), FP7 (NOVIWAM) and POCTEFEX Programme’s actions (CAMPUS EAGUA and PRAVEMA). Currently, is working on a FP7 project in India (SARASWATI) and a LIFE 2013+ action (BioSolWaRe-LIFE).