The water system surrounding Leeuwarden Air Base is affected by PFAS contamination. As a result, restrictions are currently in place on activities including swimming, fishing and irrigation. The Municipality of Leeuwarden wants to work towards a situation in which the surrounding area and its water can once again be used safely and without concern.

Removing PFAS from the water system and associated material streams will most likely require a combination of technologies. Treatment of surface water, process water, dredged material and aquatic vegetation can capture and concentrate PFAS. This produces cleaner water and materials, but does not in itself eliminate PFAS from the treatment chain.

Within this challenge, we are therefore looking for technologies that can demonstrably and irreversibly destroy PFAS in concentrated liquid and/or solid residual streams.

The technology must demonstrate that PFAS are actually destroyed rather than diluted, transferred, immobilised or transformed into other problematic compounds.

View the full challenge description in the downloads on this page for more information about potential PFAS residual streams and evaluation criteria.

The PFAS Challenge Edition

This challenge is part of the PFAS Challenge Edition from the Municipality of Leeuwarden and CEW. Across the three challenges, we are looking for technologies that can work together as part of a complete treatment train:

• Removal and concentration of PFAS from surface water and process water;

• Removal of PFAS from dredged material and aquatic vegetation;

• Demonstrable and irreversible destruction of concentrated PFAS residual streams.

Can your company (provide part of) the solution?

The PFAS Challenge Edition offers opportunities for multiple promising companies and technologies. Several solutions may be selected for practice-oriented pilots. Rather than selecting a single winner, the aim is to give different valuable parts of the treatment train the opportunity to test their technologies in practice.

The Municipality of Leeuwarden owns the challenge. CEW is involved as knowledge partner, providing additional expertise and support in setting up the pilots. CEW specialises in applied water technology research and can contribute to pilot design, monitoring and validation. For participating companies, this creates an opportunity to test their technology on representative real-world streams, generate robust performance data and further develop their solution towards practical application and scale-up. Want to learn more about the other challenges?

Also see:

• PFAS removal from water

• PFAS removal from dredged material and aquatic vegetation

Ready to take on the challenge?

The Municipality of Leeuwarden and CEW invite start-ups, scale-ups and innovative SMEs to submit a proposal for one of the three innovation challenges. Following the first selection round, the most promising candidates will be invited to further explain their proposal and meet the organisations involved in the PFAS Innovation Challenge Edition.

Deadline

Applications can be submitted until 13 January 2027 using the application form at the bottom of this page.

Please note that the first introductory meetings are scheduled for 10 February 2027.

Questions? Join the webinar

On 25 November 2026, we will host online webinars where you can learn more about the challenge and ask questions directly to the experts from the Municipality of Leeuwarden and CEW. They will explain the challenge, the available real-world streams and the opportunities for validation and potential pilots.

Sign up here: Webinar - PFAS Challenge Edition