[ad_1]
In 2016, the Indian city of Kozhikode (also known as Calicut) was hit by a severe drought, and residents, including student Swapnil Shrivastav, had only limited access to water each day.
“We can only collect two buckets of water from the tank every day,” he said.
While he said water supply problems were not uncommon in parts of India, it had been a difficult month for Shrivastav and others in the region. “It was a very wet area; it was difficult to manage.”
Shrivastav had been interested in water scarcity since 2012, after winning a student competition on how to imagine the future of urban water, but the experience pushed him to explore solutions.
“One source of inspiration was Star Wars, where there’s a device that turns air into water. I thought why don’t we try that? It’s more of a curiosity project,” he said.
A few years later, in 2019, this idea led him, Govinda Balaji and Venkatesh Raja to found Uravu Labs, a Bengaluru-based startup.
Their system converts air into water using an atmospheric water generator that contains a liquid desiccant that absorbs moisture from the air.
They use sunlight or renewable electricity to heat the desiccant to 65°C, releasing moisture which is then condensed into drinking water.
Shrivastav says the entire process takes about 12 hours. Today, each unit produces about 2,000 litres of drinking water.
However, while his vision is to provide clean water to communities facing water shortages, he said it is not financially viable.
“We realised that this technology still needs more time to develop and come down in cost,” Shrivastav explained. “Or someone should fund it, but we haven’t found support in India yet.”
Instead, they currently sell the water to 40 hotel clients, who in turn use it to provide drinking water to their customers.
“We tried the CSR (corporate social responsibility) and non-profit sectors… but a lot of companies shied away from the technology. They thought it wouldn’t work. We had to move to commercial consumer applications because they were willing to pay us and it was an element of sustainability for them,” he commented.
Water scarcity is not new, but many countries, particularly in the Global South, are experiencing severe droughts and floods linked to climate change, contaminating water sources.
More than 50 percent of the world’s population (4 billion people) experience water stress at least once a month, and by 2025, 1.8 billion people are expected to live in countries or regions experiencing “absolute” water stress, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Could atmospheric water technology solve this problem? Because of its energy efficiency (it can use renewable resources), it is a way to provide a source of fresh water without the need for traditional water infrastructure, making it an attractive option for remote areas.
There seems to be a market for this technology. According to a report by Global Market Insights, the atmospheric water market will be worth $3.4 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach $13.5 billion by 2032.
There are two main ways to produce atmospheric water. First, there is the cooling and condensation process, which cools moist air to its dew point, causing water vapor to condense into liquid water.
The second is a desiccant-based system, which uses hygroscopic materials to absorb moisture from the air and then release it through a heating process.
Co-founder and CEO Beth Koigi manages about 40 atmospheric water devices in arid and semi-arid regions of Kenya through her social enterprise Majik Water, using cooling and condensation-based technology to capture moisture from the air.
Founded in 2017, Koigi was inspired to create Majik Water after first experiencing water shortages during a drought in 2016 while studying in Nairobi.
While many people go to the nearby river to get water for cooking, drinking and washing clothes, Xiaomu said he dared not drink the contaminated water.
“It made me realize that we take for granted that water is always there,” he said.
He began looking for other water fountain ideas and founded a water filter company before developing the air-water system.
Majik Water works with NGOs and humanitarian organizations and sells it in stores.
Majik’s largest units produce 500 litres of water in 24 hours and are installed in schools and small communities.
Despite the demand for the system his company created, Koigi doesn’t see it as a permanent solution.
“Honestly, I don’t think this is a solution to water shortages,” Ogi said. “It’s a temporary solution … especially because it’s not cheap.”
Avinash Singh, associate director, research and consulting, Global Market Insights, said manufacturers are working to improve the energy efficiency of air-water generation systems.
“For example, innovations in compressors, heat exchangers and desiccants have improved the energy efficiency of such systems,” he noted.
He added that government support, subsidies or environmental regulations could drive wider adoption of the technology.
One development that will aid the adoption of such water systems is the growing popularity of digital payments.
Italy-based Veragon has water production plants in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and South America.
“When we first started working with off-grid communities, it was a cash-based partnership that wasn’t really viable… now it’s going digital,” said Stephen White, global business director at Veragon.
“For example, most of Cambodia is already covered by 4G (telecommunications networks), and with the outbreak of Covid-19, there has been an explosion in e-wallets. There is better infrastructure and private partnerships here: the government doesn’t have to get involved, and we sell water at a much lower price.”
He said all units will be digitised in the coming months.
The units don’t come cheap, however. Veragon says its equipment, which uses a refrigeration and condensing system, costs between $60,000 and $70,000.
But Shrivastav points out that producing water on-site has cost advantages because water is heavy and difficult to transport.
Looking ahead, Uravu Labs is exploring how advances in materials science could improve the efficiency of desiccants, or how different materials could be used to absorb more moisture from the air, making the process more efficient.
Shrivastav said the advances will also result in a reduction in the required heat from 60°C to 40°C.
They also hope to run a pilot project to install their equipment in data centers in India and Singapore.
Data centers generate a lot of heat that is usually lost, but Uravu plans to use it to produce fresh water.
Srivastav said: “This process will lead to a reduction in fresh water consumption (in data centers) by up to 95% because the Uravu system captures most of the waste heat and returns it as chilled water, so very little fresh water is required.”
Click here to read more stories from BBC News Mundo.
You can also follow us on YouTube , Instagram , TikTok , X , Facebook , and our new WhatsApp channel , where you can find breaking news and our best content.
Remember that you can receive notifications in our applications. Download the latest versions and activate them.
[ad_2]
Source link
