IWA announces Next Generation Sanitation Systems Project teams

As part of its ongoing efforts to advance practical sanitation options especially for low- and middle-income countries, the International Water Association (IWA) has progressed its Next Generation Sanitation Systems (NGSS) Project into its next phase, announcing the organisations who have been selected to take forward the project’s research and development work.

The NGSS Project aims to accelerate the development of innovative sanitation solutions that are safe, sustainable, and scalable, including fully integrated household systems capable of treating all wastewater and modular sub-systems that support these solutions. The project has a particular focus on low- and middle-income countries, while also fostering technologies adaptable to high-income contexts.

The announcement, in partnership with the Gates Foundation Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme, follows a competitive process to select four R&D teams organised into two technical workstreams (‘Trains’), reflecting a range of innovative approaches to advancing next-generation sanitation systems.

Train 1 consists of teams from NOAH, Hydrohm, and Recovered Potential. This train focuses on advancing a market-ready integrated sanitation system, with an emphasis on deployable, household-scale operational systems. Within this workstream, NOAH is responsible for improving modules of its Pilot system, Hydrohm is leading the enhancement of the ElectroShield technology and associated sensor integration, and Recovered Potential is responsible for developing the modular electrochemical stripping (ECS) systems that remove and recover nitrogen from high-strength wastewater.

Train 2 is led by Daqing Anxin Hengye Instrument & Control Equipment Co., Ltd. and focuses on the development of ceramic membrane filtration, electrocoagulation, and electrodisinfection modules.

These selected organisations will collaborate under the NGSS Project to refine, test, and advance next-generation sanitation technologies, contributing to knowledge-sharing and innovation pathways that support cost reduction and global compliance.

In 2025, the NGSS initiative brought together eight selected teams representing universities, research institutes, engineering firms, and startups for a workshop in Bangkok. Over five days of intensive collaboration, teams engaged in interdisciplinary technical exchange, iterative design refinement, and expertled guidance on cost modelling, energy budgeting, and regulatory compliance pathways – all aimed at strengthening concepts that can be demonstrated and deployed in realworld contexts.

Applications were evaluated on the readiness, scalability, and effectiveness of proposed solutions, with emphasis on:

• Compliance with or clear pathways toward ISO 30500 and equivalent standards
• Affordability and durability of technologies
• Adaptability across diverse contexts, including resource-limited settings

IWA looks forward to working closely with the selected organisations over the course of the project and to sharing further updates as the work progresses.