With the completion of CIRCULINK, a project comes to a close that has made it possible to develop an integrated digital platform for connecting material, water, energy and logistics resources and identifying new circular economy opportunities in the region.
The aim of CIRCULINK has been to investigate how digitalisation, artificial intelligence and expert knowledge can help identify, connect and visualise these opportunities. The platform brings together in a single solution four key areas of the circular economy: materials, water, energy and logistics, which operate as part of the same digital ecosystem. It includes a geographic viewer that makes it possible to locate resources across the region and to consider the distance and availability of transport between supply and demand points as one of the factors in analysing each opportunity.
At AVENTEC, we have taken part in the different development phases of the water work package, from identifying needs and defining the information required to characterise water resources, to designing reclaimed water passports, integrating them into the platform and validating the functionalities developed. These passports make it possible to structure relevant information on the quality, volume, location and potential uses of reclaimed water in a consistent way, making it easier to consult the available resources and compare their main characteristics.
Based on this information, CIRCULINK makes it possible to match supply and demand for reclaimed water and detect potential reuse opportunities, taking into account technical and proximity criteria.
The platform also includes a matching system that identifies matches both within a single area and across different areas. In the case of water, this system helps detect potential links between an available resource and a compatible demand.
The platform combines AI tools to detect, rank and explain potential matches. Its role is not to automatically decide whether an operation should go ahead, but to provide information that helps the user or specialist assess each opportunity.
When a potential connection is identified, the platform can show the favourable elements, the factors that may hinder it, the information still missing and the aspects that need to be validated before moving forward. In this way, technology acts as a decision-support tool, while the final assessment remains with the user.
CIRCULINK also features a conversational assistant for interacting with the platform. Users can search the registered resources, which makes the information easier to access.
With the completion of the project, CIRCULINK leaves behind an integrated, fully functional platform, ready to incorporate new resources, users, regions and use cases. In the field of water, the work carried out helps turn the available information on reclaimed water into real opportunities for reuse and recovery.
CIRCULINK has been developed under the 2025 call for grants supporting Innovative Business Clusters of the Spanish Ministry of Industry and Tourism, through a consortium coordinated by Smart City Cluster and made up of Catalan Water Partnership, CEAGA, SOLARTYS, FOQUM Analytics, Geoslab, Go Zero Waste, Las Rozas Innova, AVENTEC and ENDEF.
