Engineers Are Producing Potable Water From Thin Air

Using Nanotech, Chennai Engineers Are Producing

Potable Water From Thin Air!

“A person with an Atmospheric Water Generator at home can ensure a timely and safe supply of water for themselves using electricity or solar energy. No more dependency on tankers, water cans or RO purifiers”, says the innovators. #Innovation #ChennaiWaterCrisis

Rinchen Norbu Wangchuk

Like any engineering aspirant, Ramesh Kumar Soni’s dreamed of securing admission in one of the prestigious IITs. Unfortunately, it did not happen. However, during his preparations in Kota, Rajasthan, he encountered the exciting field of nanotechnology, and shedding his disappointments aside, he decided to join Chennai’s SRM University for a BTech in the subject.

His growing understanding of nanotechnology propelled his interest towards developing atmospheric water generators (AWGs), a device that extracts pure, safe, clean, potable and remineralized water from humid ambient air.

He finished his BTech degree in May 2014, and joined the chemistry department at IIT-Madras, as a project associate the same year.

Here, alongside Professor T Pradeep from the Department of Chemistry, and PhD student, Ankit Nagar, he co-founded Vayujal on September 20, 2017, which develops AWGs.

Thus far, the startup has produced five units of AWGs, of which four generate 100 litres a day, and one generates 400 litres per day.

“The company’s patented surface engineering technology and unit design increases water collecting efficiency of AWG units and provides water at a cost 10-20 times less than the current bottled water costs,” says the company website.

The IIT-Madras incubated startup designs and structures the critical components like air filters, water purifiers, heat exchanger coils, condensers, evaporators, compressors and some fans and assembled all of them together.

Ramesh’s expertise in nanotechnology comes into play in the condensation process.

How does this machine work?

Speaking to The Hindu, Ramesh draws comparisons with how an air conditioner works, where there are different surfaces

involved and where there is condensation of water.

“This condensed water is filtered, treated, mineralized and made fit for drinking or cooking. The structures used for cooling the air draw inspiration from cacti. Just as the cacti have small thorn-like structures, the cooling surface in the AWG too has some structures that is used to cool the air. When air passes through it, the relative humidity content goes high, and water starts to come out of it. The rate at which water is produced depends on the ambient temperature, humidity level, volume of air passing over the coil and the unit’s capacity to cool the coil,” explains Ramesh, speaking to the national daily.

Speaking to The Better India, Ramesh says that developing AWGs to generate potable water isn’t a groundbreaking innovation, but Vayujal is developing units with higher efficiency.

For a city like Chennai, which is suffering from its worst water crisis in recent memory, these machines are critical.

“Today, many cities in India, particularly Chennai and Bengaluru, are suffering from a severe shortage of groundwater. In some cities, this water is expected to run out soon. Moreover, surface water bodies have been devastated. Right now, we are entirely dependent on the rain, and for drinking water, we are either reliant on water cans or RO purifiers. But conditions in Chennai make RO water a less viable option.

Meanwhile, the supply of water in cans has been completely disturbed. The price of water has been hiked, while there are fears of impurities. In these conditions, a person with the AWG at home can produce their own water on conventional electricity or solar energy. They are ensured of timely supply of water and assured of what kind of water they are getting because ultimately they are making that water. This dependency on water supply goes away. You have independent control over your water. That’s a value addition our units can do,” says Ramesh.

Vayujal is also currently developing the 30 and 2000 litres per day (on solar backup) units as well.

“The cost of water generated from this

machine is somewhere around Rs 1.5-3 per litre if the electricity tariff is at Rs 6 a unit. However, the cost of water depends on electricity tariffs, relative humidity and ambient temperature as well,” informs Ramesh.

What helps Vayujal in generating water at such low prices is the high levels of humidity in Chennai, but Ramesh informs that they are looking to mitigate the effect of ambient humidity. They want this machine to run efficiently in dry and hot states like Rajasthan.

Another challenge is ensuring that the condensation process is more efficient and less power consuming.

“If somebody makes 100 litres of water per day on a particular surface area, can you make 150 litres of water on the same sur

face area? Moreover, while doing that, can we achieve the same objectives with a little more power efficiency? We are trying to minimize power consumption. By raising the heat transfer and condensation efficiency, there is a real possibility we will consume less power per litre of water produced,” explains Ramesh.

“For every litre of water we produce, we consume 0.3 to 0.4 units of electricity. We need to bring that down so that it is affordable. If we go below 0.3 units per litre daily under Delhi’s semi-arid like climate, we would be happy. That will be a real milestone,” he adds.

That’s where we come to the next challenge, which is to reduce the cost. Today, the 100 litres per day unit costs approximately Rs 1.5 lakh, while the 400 litres unit costs Rs 5 lakh. For the 30 litres per day unit, they are trying to keep it below Rs 50,000. VayuJal will soon start scaling up the production of AWGs in Chennai, helping them to reduce the cost of production further.

“We are essentially working on raising operating efficiency and reducing costs. A school may be able to buy our machine, but an individual school teacher may not. A proper manufacturing structure in place will help us reduce capital costs. The objective is to ensure minimal costs for maintenance and power consumption, running these units

for 10-15 years,” informs Ramesh.

The moment these AWGs are available to individuals at affordable prices, what you’ll have is an era of democratized water, where individual households can have complete control over their own supply of potable drinking water. (Source: thebetterindia.com)

(page no. 27 cont..) and 2050, as currently seen in the zero draft. Including 2050 goals will consume scarce time and resources and hold back the talks.

Third, the targets should give full play to the roles and contributions of non-state actors. The widespread changes needed for the 2050 vision demand unprecedented cooperation and participation. The zero draft emphasises the rights and actions of indigenous people, local communities, civil society and the private sector in multiple sections. But it lacks content on how to incorporate the goals and actions of non-state actors, and in particular the contributions of civil society, indigenous peoples, local communities and the private sector towards the 2030 biodiversity targets. For example, Chinese environmental groups such as the Global Environmental Institute and the Paradise Foundation have protected around 8,000 km2 of land, protecting many key species and habitats. But those protected areas are not currently recognised in legislation and so are not counted as part of China’s contribution to the protection of biodiversity.

Fourth, better definition of the responsibilities and duties for protection of ocean biodiversity. The nature of the ocean means its protection requires regional or global cooperation. We note the current draft mentions communication and cooperation with other international organisations and multilateral environmental agreements. We hope to see the legal definition of oceans made clear, alongside responsibilities inside and outside of areas of national jurisdiction. Member states should also be encouraged to cooperate on biodiversity protection and sustainable development of the high seas, to assess the impact of fishing, shipping and other activities on the ocean environment, and to take measures to minimise that impact.

Fifth, strengthen implementation mechanisms supporting the targets. We note that talks on implementation mechanisms, resource allocation, responsibilities and transparency are ongoing, with no concrete language in the zero draft. We call for implementation mechanisms which match ambitious targets, to ensure the effectiveness of the post-2020 framework. For example, China has put forward the “ecological civilisation” concept, backed up by policy reforms and action, such as setting ecological redlines and carrying out environmental implementation inspection. This provides a model for mechanisms protecting biodiversity. The ecological civilisation is already a COP15 theme, and the framework should include examples of implementation mechanisms to be considered.

The world is already undergoing its sixth mass extinction, sparked by humanity itself – and only humanity can stop it. The coronavirus sweeping the world, the plagues of locusts in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond – these events show the biodiversity crisis our vulnerable planet is facing, and the urgent need for us to “live in harmony with nature.” The Kunming conference will be humanity’s last chance to save biodiversity, but the window of opportunity is closing. Using the coming seven months to produce an ambitious yet practical plan is the life-or-death challenge we now face. (Source: thethirdpole.net)