Andrea Achilli develops water reuse technology in partnership with U.S. Army

College of Engineering faculty member Andrea Achilli created a portable water recycling system as part of an expanding partnership between the University of Arizona’s Water and Energy Sustainable Technology Center’s (WEST) and the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC). 

Achilli, associate professor of CHEE, addresses critical water needs as principal investigator for two of the center’s largest grants. He leads the U of A’s work in a four-year, $38M ERDC-funded Water Reuse Consortium – which also includes the University of Southern California and the University of Nevada, Reno. 

The U of A’s $10M portion of the grant supports research on smart treatment systems, sustainable brine management technologies, and improved virus detection.

“Water reuse is, of course, an important response to water scarcity,” said Andrea Achilli, “but we can’t forget it’s also about national security.”

One area where Achilli saw big benefits was moving communities from massive water and wastewater treatment plants to smaller, mobile and semi-mobile advanced water purification systems. Traditional facilities are costly, built to last decades, and risky to upgrade. In contrast, decentralized systems are easier to adapt.

For military bases, on-site reuse – particularly processes using only electricity, without chemicals – could reduce the dangers of resupply missions. For civilian communities, these smaller systems would lessen dependence on large, centralized plants that leave entire communities vulnerable if they fail. These concepts have already been put to the test in an earlier ERDC-funded effort, the ESTCP Demonstration Project. Completed in 2025, the project piloted a semi-portable, containerized advanced water purification unit.