For many small businesses, success does not start with a solid business plan, but by investing in long-standing relationships built on shared curiosity and trust.
When Joaquín ‘Ximo’ Silvestre and Sergey Mikhalovsky met almost 25 years ago, they already knew they would share something meaningful: a mission to remove harmful elements from humans and nature alike.
Now, Ximo became a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Alicante while Sergey co-founded ANAMAD, a UK-based micro-business that develops a water treatment technology with cold plasma. With EU funding through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), they were able to find new ways to collaborate and bring forward common projects despite the distance.
Their work found a new climax in CLEANWATER – another MSCA-funded project under the Staff Exchanges action, which promises to develop a cost-effective and portable water purification device to eliminate contaminants from freshwater.
Through MSCA Staff Exchanges, Sergey welcomes researchers from Ximo's university and other partnering organisations across Europe and beyond to run experiments that will help his company increase its critical mass, generate market-ready data and accelerate the path from lab breakthrough to real-world application.
We spoke to them both to hear their background story and explore how MSCA Staff Exchanges is helping them unlock the project’s full potential.
How did you end up doing research on contaminated water, and what is the back story behind the ideation of the project?
Ximo: Sergey had very good contacts with physics that were developing plasma. We knew that it was highly efficient, and saw some synergy with the chemistry, but we still needed to improve its efficiency. We decided to build a new group including some partnering third countries that have real issues with wastewater. We were lucky to get them on board, both because it meant we could perform some real testing there and because we could show to local people what we could do to fix their problem.
Sergey: We realised that our work had a positive effect and saw a simple connection: if we could remove something harmful from the body, we knew we could do the same with water, soil and even other contaminated environments. So we thought, why not try?
Can you briefly explain your collaboration within the MSCA Staff Exchanges action?
Sergey: We are a micro company: currently we have five employees, two of which working part-time. Our goal is to develop and a technology and bring it to market, but the small workforce makes it very difficult. So, we have researchers join us: they bring their own materials and samples to do some planned experiments which will be useful for both parties. We create data which is potentially useful for end users like water companies, so then we can approach them to sell our product. This increases our critical mass (data output) and allows us to see where this technology could be best applied both for our benefit and the customer’s.
Eventually, thanks to these exchanges, we will be able to further move down the commercialisation line and become a much bigger company.
Ximo: MSCA Staff Exchanges are mutually beneficial to both EU Member States and third countries. Since the big technology is usually in the EU, people from third countries can come to learn how to use it and at the same time, we can test the prototype in situ in a third country. In CLEANWATER, we were able to design this technology and test it in our labs in ideal conditions using wastewater from our partnering third countries. All of them have very well-defined procedures so they help students to arrange all logistics – from visas to plane tickets and accommodation.
Two years into the project, how would you judge the progress made so far?
Sergey: In this time, we understood the project is not cast in stone and science is never limited. Think of it as a tree: it has a trunk and branches but never stops growing. It is a dynamic project which continues to expand: the more we exchange knowledge, the stronger and braver we become to break new ground. We believe that our approaches are universal, so if there is a way to remove one contaminant, then we can use the same principle to remove others. For example, PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, so-called "forever chemicals") were not such a hot topic when we wrote this proposal, but now we pay more attention to them as multiple laws have been released in the meantime, and we want to respond to our society’s needs. We feel like we are getting closer to something big, which we couldn’t even dream about when we started the project.
Ximo: The original idea was to combine the basics from physics and plasma with material science. The preliminary tests came out very successful, so we started to expand the testing to more challenging molecules like microplastics and PFAS. I'm really happy and optimistic about the project – we will see whenever we move the testing to a real river in Mexico or the groundwater in Slovakia, where we have a lot of contaminant including plastics and metals.
You have both been involved in other EU-funded research programmes. What sets MSCA apart from the rest?
Ximo: First of all, the fact that we are free to choose the topic of research.
This allows us to think of concrete problems that are affecting local communities, develop projects to tackle them specifically, and meet them to show them what science can do for them.
Moreover, our university’s students have the chance to visit other labs, complement experiments with other techniques and, besides science, learn new cultures, new languages and new working environments. They become a part of the study family, and when they return they can transfer everything they learned into our facilities. This enormous European project is good for them, for us researchers and for wider society.
What is your end goal, from both the point of view of your individual organisations and your collective consortium?
Ximo: The question is how far we will be able to go in testing complicated contaminants – the combination of plasma, adsorption and photocatalysis will give us a very good answer. A big difference would be to see if this device can be incorporated in specific reservoirs where we can clean contaminated wastewater, for example the ones we are testing now in London and Ostrava. Our dream is to bring our device there, because that will bring real benefits for the local society.
Sergey: The ultimate goal is to make the environment cleaner and our health safer. If you follow the analogy of the tree, let's imagine that its fruits drop to the soil so that new plants can grow. We will continue our collaboration to try and get as close to its practical application as possible. I am a fantasist, so right now a lot of this is still in our heads. And four years may not be enough to close this project, but we will keep applying for funding and we are definitely not going to stop here!
In 2026, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions is celebrating 30 years of advancing research and innovation, supporting over 150,000 researchers including 23 Nobel Prize winners. Visit the special 30th birthday website to find out more about the programme and read some of the testimonials.
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Details
- Publication date
- 25 February 2026
- Author
- European Research Executive Agency