Novasorb waters speed up deployment of its EFAS capture solution in industrial effluents

Novasorb Waters is accelerating. This cleantech project was awarded the grand prize at the i-Lab 2026 innovation competition in mid-September. At the key, funding of up to 600,000 euros to this project incubated at BIC Montpellier and carried by Beatriz Gasparini, specialist in aquatic environments treatment and manufacturing effluents. The project is slated to be transformed into a start-up by early 2027.

Novasorb is developing a material capable of adsorbing PFAS (these per-and polyfluoroalkylated substances also called eternal contaminants) in aqueous solution. Made up of trianglamins, molecules in the shape of a triangle, this material comes from research carried out by Mona Semsarilar, CNRS researcher at the European Institute of Membranes, at the University of Montpellier.

The latter, which patented the methodology, had integrated the CNRS start-up Rise acceleration program in early 2024. The project was then called Cleaneau and relied on 3D printing to maximize the absorption surface area. He also worked on the functionalization of molecules to target various contaminants. Since then, "we have put aside 3D printing, which posed challenges to the scale, and we have opted to a porous marbles format, to which manufacturers are applied to their filtration columns", says Beatriz Gasparini, arrival in the project at the end of 2024 and which ensures its regulation.

to the future CEO, the time has come to acceleration because "the regulations on the EFAS are changing very rapidly with rising standards". Novasorb is now exclusively aimed at EFAS and highlights its ability to capture plus small molecules in this family, such as TFA (trifluoroaceae). "Current effluent treatment techniques, based on activated charcoal or ions-exchange resins, are struggling to pick up short-chain, ultracourte PFAs," Beatriz Gasparini said. Our trials on TFA, which has only two carbon atoms, have shown that we can capture plus 95% of TFA in solution."

The performance of the material developed by Novasorb is due in particular to the fact that it has "a double porosity: a granular porosity like active coals and a unique porosity linked to trianglamine macrocyles", indicates the leader. According to her, the trianglamine resin also has the advantage of selectively capturing the EFAS, when its rivals also absorb all kinds of compounds and therefore rapidly saturation. The other advantage of this selectivity lies in the fact that the capture results in a small quantity of resin loaded strongly and almost exclusively with EFAS, which reduces the cost of incineration or even opens the way to the consumption of techniques to regenerating the absorbent material, which even have become financially accessible.

Novasorb is currently testing the selectivity of its material on increasingly complex solutions. "We work with manufacturers emitting EFAS to know the composition of their effluents and to, plus broadly, better understand their processes and their constraints", explains Beatriz Gasparini. Especially, the future start-up is preparing manufacturing pilots to test its solution in real conditions from the end of 2026. To achieve them, she is train. train to discuss with producers of polymer marbles who will create the material in sufficient quantity to fill the filtration columns of the pilots. "The i-Lab competition award is very crucial because it will enable us to accelerate the commercial deployment of our solution in the market by funding the pilot test campaign," summarizes the future CEO.