Department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development

Achieving universal access to safe and affordable drinking water (SDG 6) requires scalable, reliable, and locally adaptable water treatment technologies. The Clara in-line electrochlo­rinator has been installed across Ethiopia, Madagas­car, and Kenya. Unlike passive chlorinators that rely on chlorine supply chains and have difficulty dealing with water quality and flow variations, Clara generates the chlorine so­lution in situ using table salt and solar energy. While Clara has been shown to sig­nificantly reduce E. coli contamination in distribution networks, user experiences with the device revealed a need to improve chlorine dosing con­sistency at consumption points.

The Innosuisse-funded Clara NextGen project is a 2-year partner­ship between CLARA Water AG, CSEM, and Eawag to create the next-generation Clara device. This project focuses on developing adaptive dosing based on real-time water quality sensing; a re­vamped hydraulic system to reduce manual operation and mainte­nance; and improved remote communication for retrieving quality data and key process parameters.

This project represents an important step toward mak­ing water disinfection even more reliable, autonomous, and scalable. Ultimately, Clara NextGen’s goal is to deliver a fully integrated, low-maintenance solution that can bring safe drinking water to more com­munities worldwide.

Project timeline: 2025 - 2027