Vienna SME specializing in circular economy solutions — water reuse, bio-waste valorization, and green chemistry for buildings and agriculture.
Alchemia-nova is a Vienna-based green chemistry and circular economy SME that develops nature-based solutions for water treatment, bio-waste valorization, and resource recovery in buildings and agriculture. They specialize in closing material loops — turning wastewater into reusable water, bio-waste into biogas, and CO2 emissions into value-added chemicals. Their work spans green building retrofitting (integrated structural elements, smart BIPV envelopes) and circular agricultural systems (precision irrigation, biochar, nutrient recycling). They bridge laboratory-scale bio-based innovations with real-world demonstration, frequently contributing circular design expertise to large multi-partner consortia.
Central to HOUSEFUL (wastewater/water reuse in housing), HYDROUSA (closing water loops in Mediterranean), MULTISOURCE (nature-based urban water treatment), WATERAGRI (water retention in agriculture), and INNOV (VertECO automated water system).
GREEN INSTRUCT (structural elements for retrofitting), ReCO2ST (near-zero energy residential retrofit), and PVadapt (modular smart BIPV systems with circular design).
HOUSEFUL (bio-waste treatment and biogas production), CATCO2NVERS (catalytic conversion of CO2 into chemicals), and DIVAGRI (biorefinery and circular agricultural innovations).
HOUSEFUL (circular services for housing), BioeconomyVentures (bioeconomy startups), and MULTISOURCE (new business opportunities from nature-based solutions).
WATERAGRI (precision irrigation, biochar, nutrient recycling), DIVAGRI (diversified agriculture in Africa with solar desalination and inter-cropping), and CATCO2NVERS (bio-industrial CO2 conversion).
In their early H2020 period (2016–2018), alchemia-nova focused heavily on the built environment — green construction materials, building retrofitting, and circular water/waste systems within housing (GREEN INSTRUCT, HOUSEFUL, HYDROUSA). Their early keywords center on water reuse, bio-waste treatment, wastewater, and construction. From 2020 onward, their focus shifted decisively toward agriculture and bioeconomy — precision irrigation, biochar, catalytic CO2 conversion, biorefinery, and climate change adaptation in farming systems (WATERAGRI, CATCO2NVERS, DIVAGRI). The thread connecting both periods is circular resource management, but the application domain moved from buildings to food systems and bio-based industry.
They are moving from building-scale circular solutions toward agricultural and bio-industrial systems, with growing capability in catalytic chemistry and climate adaptation — expect future proposals in sustainable food systems and bio-based value chains.
Alchemia-nova operates almost exclusively as a consortium partner (10 of 11 projects), with only one small coordination effort (INNOV, €119K). They consistently join large consortia — 171 unique partners across 34 countries from just 11 projects indicates an average consortium size well above 15 members. This is a specialist contributor that gets invited into ambitious demonstration projects for their circular economy and green chemistry expertise, rather than a project initiator that builds consortia around its own ideas.
With 171 unique consortium partners across 34 countries, alchemia-nova has one of the broadest collaboration networks you would expect from an SME of this size. Their projects span Mediterranean water demonstrations (HYDROUSA), African agricultural innovation (DIVAGRI), and pan-European building retrofitting, giving them connections well beyond their Austrian base.
Alchemia-nova occupies a rare niche: a green chemistry SME that applies circular economy principles across both the built environment and agricultural systems. While many organizations specialize in either buildings or farming, alchemia-nova's cross-domain expertise in water loops, bio-waste valorization, and nature-based treatment solutions makes them unusually versatile. For consortium builders, they bring practical circular design capability that translates across sectors — a valuable asset when proposals need to demonstrate cross-cutting environmental impact.
