PURAFFINITY LTD

Their core work

Puraffinity (formerly Customem Ltd) develops advanced nanomaterial-based filtration media designed to selectively capture and recycle specific micropollutants from contaminated water. Their core technology — a customisable nano-media platform — binds target compounds with high selectivity, making it possible to remove hazardous trace chemicals that conventional treatment systems miss. The company progressed through the full EU SME Instrument pathway, moving from feasibility validation in 2017 to a fully funded innovation project through 2020, signalling a technology that passed rigorous commercial viability screening. The company's rebranding from Customem to Puraffinity reflects a shift in commercial messaging from the material ("custom membranes") toward the outcome ("pure affinity capture").

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Puraffinity's H2020 history spans only two projects — both carrying the same CGM acronym — representing a single technology taken from concept to market-ready product via the SME Instrument Phase 1 / Phase 2 pathway. There is no meaningful keyword shift between early and recent periods because the same core innovation thread runs through the entire participation. What the timeline does reveal is a deepening of scope: the 2017 feasibility project speaks of tailoring media to "specific" micropollutants, while the 2018 Phase 2 project targets "hazardous" micropollutants specifically, suggesting a strategic narrowing toward higher-value, regulatory-driven applications. The progression from a €50k feasibility grant to a €1.37M development award within one year indicates rapid technical and commercial validation.

Their trajectory points toward commercial scale-up and market entry in industrial and municipal water treatment, particularly for regulated hazardous compound removal — a segment under increasing regulatory pressure across the EU and UK.

How they like to work

Puraffinity has operated exclusively as coordinator across both H2020 projects, and with zero registered consortium partners, both grants were executed as single-beneficiary SME Instrument awards — a standard structure for that funding scheme. This means there is no evidence of consortium-building experience or collaborative research partnerships within H2020. A future partner should expect to work with a technology owner that drives its own development agenda rather than one experienced in large multi-partner coordination.

Puraffinity has no recorded H2020 consortium partners and has not collaborated with organisations in other countries within this dataset, which is expected given their use of the single-beneficiary SME Instrument scheme. Their network, if any, would be found through commercial channels and industry associations rather than EU project consortia.

What sets them apart

Puraffinity occupies a rare niche as a nanotechnology SME focused specifically on the selectivity problem in water treatment — the ability to target particular micropollutants rather than applying broad-spectrum filtration. The added emphasis on recycling captured compounds (not just removing them) differentiates them from conventional activated-carbon or membrane suppliers. For a consortium targeting water quality, circular economy, or industrial wastewater regulation, they bring proprietary material science that most environmental engineering firms do not have in-house.

Highlights from their portfolio

• CGM (Phase 2)
  The largest grant in their portfolio at €1.37M, this SME Instrument Phase 2 award represents a full-scale innovation project to bring hazardous micropollutant removal technology to market — the highest-stakes validation milestone a European SME can achieve without a consortium.
• CGM (Phase 1)
  The €50k feasibility award in 2017 that directly preceded the Phase 2 grant, demonstrating the company successfully passed EU-level commercial and technical scrutiny within a single year — an unusually fast progression through the SME Instrument.