Bracco Imaging and Zereau have signed an agreement to launch the second stage of their collaborative research program aimed at reducing contrast media in wastewater by using sustainable urine filtration systems in hospitals and diagnostic facilities.
The new stage of the program, named “the Water Project,” was announced on the first day of ECR 2025, being held in Vienna from February 26 to March 2.
In a statement, the firms noted that this launch follows the successful completion of an earlier study that assessed a urine filtration system for iodinated contrast media.
The second stage of the Water Project will focus on the development and testing of scalable, robust urine collection and filtration devices to be used in hospitals and diagnostic facilities.
In this stage, patients receiving contrast media in hospitals and diagnostic facilities will use toilets designed to collect and filter the contrast from their urine. The saturated filters will be collected and processed by third-party partners to recover materials such as iodine which would otherwise be released into wastewater, according to the two firms.