ACURIANT TECHNOLOGIES, INC. SHORTLISTED FOR WATER TECHNOLOGY COMPANY OF THE YEAR AT THE GLOBAL WATER AWARDS 2026

Boston, MA — March 29, 2026 — Acuriant Technologies, Inc. has been shortlisted for Water Technology Company of the Year at the Global Water Awards 2026. The award is organized by Global Water Intelligence, the leading research and media organization serving the international water sector, and is widely regarded as the most credible recognition in the global water technology industry. Winners are determined by vote of GWI subscribers and announced at the Global Water Summit in Madrid, Spain on May 19. The nomination reflects a year in which Acuriant's Nanostone ceramic ultrafiltration platform moved decisively from specialist industrial application into mainstream water treatment evaluation arriving at exactly the moment the industry needs it most.

Water treatment faces a structural shift

Across the world, the conditions that water treatment systems were designed for are no longer the conditions they operate in. Surface water sources face stronger storm events, heavier runoff, and more frequent algal blooms driven by warming temperatures. Turbidity spikes that once defined exceptional events are becoming operational baselines. It is a preview of what utilities worldwide are beginning to face.

Against this backdrop, treatment barriers must perform predictably under conditions that conventional systems were not built to absorb. What utilities and industrial operators need is a filtration technology that holds its integrity when feedwater changes sharply, tolerates abrasive solids and aggressive chemistry, and delivers reliable pathogen removal over an asset life measured in decades. Ceramic ultrafiltration does this by design. In 2025, Acuriant closed the economic gap.

From one product to a platform

Acuriant was formed through the merger of Nanostone Water and Solecta, bringing together two complementary membrane brands under one organization. Nanostone is Acuriant's ceramic ultrafiltration brand, manufacturing and deploying ceramic UF systems for municipal water treatment, industrial process water, and demanding industrial wastewater applications. Solecta serves dairy, food and beverage, life sciences, and other process industries through precision-engineered polymeric microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, and reverse osmosis. Together they form one of the industry's most comprehensive membrane portfolios, designed for material-agnostic system design across pretreatment, separation, and polishing.

For Nanostone specifically, 2025 was a defining year. The portfolio entered the year centered on a single ceramic UF module. It closed the year with three; each addressing a distinct application need and collectively representing a step-change in the scope of ceramic UF deployment.

CUF|Flow: the economics of ceramic UF have changed

The most consequential of Nanostone's 2025 launches was CUF|Flow, a high-capacity ceramic ultrafiltration module that delivers approximately 40 percent more active membrane surface area within the same physical housing as CUF|Shield, Nanostone's established cornerstone module.

That single development has rewritten the financial calculus of ceramic UF. More membrane area per module means fewer modules per rack, fewer racks per installation, and lower total installed cost across piping, valves, instrumentation, and structural steel. The result is ceramic UF at near economic parity with conventional pretreatment alternatives, for the first time.

What this means in practice is that project engineers evaluating pretreatment options can now put ceramic UF in a standard bid comparison on cost, alongside the performance advantages the technology has always offered. The barrier that kept ceramic UF in niche applications for more than a decade has been removed.

There is an additional dimension that increasingly matters to asset owners: ceramic membranes are PFAS-free by construction. As regulatory scrutiny of PFAS-containing materials intensifies across jurisdictions, the material composition of treatment barriers is entering procurement decisions. Installing a ceramic system today eliminates a layer of potential compliance exposure over a 20 year asset horizon.

CUF|ShieldPlus: validated in the most demanding environments on the planet

Alongside CUF|Flow, the launch of CUF|ShieldPlus advanced Nanostone's ceramic platform into a critical industrial category. CUF|ShieldPlus is engineered specifically for the process-critical wastewater streams generated in semiconductor fabrication, streams that combine chemical aggression, abrasive particle loads, and compliance requirements that leave little margin for performance variability.

CUF|ShieldPlus is now operational in more than 50 semiconductor fabrication facilities worldwide. In an industry where unplanned downtime is measured in lost production value, that installed base is a statement of technical trust earned under the most demanding conditions any water treatment system encounters.

"The convergence of several things at once"

"What happened in 2025 was the convergence of several things at once," said Jürgen von Hollen, CEO of Acuriant Technologies, Inc. "The formation of Acuriant gave us the platform. The expansion of our Nanostone module portfolio gave us the proof points across applications. And CUF|Flow shifted the economics in a way that makes ceramic UF the answer for a far broader range of applications than it has ever been before. Our customers are dealing with feedwater conditions that are becoming more variable, more unpredictable, and harder to manage with conventional systems. We built a ceramic platform that addresses that challenge directly and has closed the economic gap. That combination is what this nomination recognizes."

About the Global Water Awards

The Global Water Awards are organized by Global Water Intelligence, the leading research and media organization covering the international water sector. The awards are presented annually at the Global Water Summit and are voted on by subscribers to GWI's five publications. Being shortlisted places Acuriant among the most impactful water technology companies operating globally.

Voting is open from March 30 through April 27, 2026. Winners will be announced on May 19 at the Global Water Summit in Madrid, Spain. Full shortlist details are available at globalwaterawards.com.

About Acuriant Technologies, Inc.

Acuriant Technologies, Inc. is a global membrane technology company delivering advanced filtration and separation solutions for industrial operators and municipal utilities where performance, reliability, and lifetime economics are decisive. Formed through the merger of Nanostone Water and Solecta, Acuriant combines ceramic ultrafiltration with precision-engineered polymeric membranes across microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, and reverse osmosis, creating one of the water industry's most comprehensive membrane portfolios with performance proven in more than 400 installations worldwide. Headquartered in Boston, the company employs more than 250 people globally, with major operations in Germany and the United States.

For more information, visit acuriant.com. For information on Nanostone ceramic ultrafiltration, visit nanostone.com.