About Us


Our vision is to enable access to suitable water
almost anywhere in the world

NEWT is an interdisciplinary, multi-institution nanosystems-engineering research center (headquartered at Rice University) whose goal is to facilitate access to clean water almost anywhere in the world by developing efficient modular water treatment systems that are easy to deploy, and that can tap unconventional sources to provide humanitarian water or emergency response.

NEWT’s technologies will safely exploit the unique properties of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) to treat water using less chemicals, less electricity and smaller reactors than current technologies, enable re-use or regeneration of ENMs to decrease treatment costs, and use interchangeable treatment modules to accommodate different feed-water quality and treatment objectives.

NEWT also develops systems to treat and reuse challenging industrial wastewaters in remote locations, such as oil and gas fields to help energy production be more sustainable and more cost-efficient in regards to its water footprint.

Industrial Waste Water Reuse

NEWT uses modular multi-functional high performance technology. 

Like nanophotocatalysts, membrane nanotechnology, and nano-adsorbents. 

Using this technology, we treat wastewater so clean water can be used for drinking and other uses. 

More from NEWT

Our Organization

We are committed to diversity at NEWT
The center research will have direct impact on a fundamental necessity for life – water, which is also a critical resource for economic and social development, and intricately connected to energy production. Through its fundamental and transformative research as well as innovative educational programs, NEWT will also educate the next-generation workforce to be creative, versatile leaders in the burgeoning industry of sustainable technologies for water treatment.