Tag: Drinking water

Water Supply

michaelbergen000000000009Leave a comment

Sustainability Problem: Water

Water Supply: “World Health Organization, 1.6 million people die each year from diarrhoeal diseases attributable to lack of safe drinking water as well as basic sanitation”. 

Technology Solution Nanotechnology in Filtration

  • It removes microbes, bacteria and other matters from water using composite nanoparticles.
  • Low cost water purification
  • Cost of water decreased from $1 per cubic metre to between $.80 and $.50
  • Capably of Smart Monitoring

Stakeholders

Stakeholders

  • Public
  • Irrigation companies
  • Wastewater processing companies
  • Mobile recycling facilities
  • Government

Deployment/Implementation

  • Developing countries losses 45m cubic metres are lost everyday
  • Without smart monitoring technology it hard to attracted investment for treatment plants, pumping stations because of the loss water production.
  • With smart monitoring technology, it can ensure investors that it will minimize the loss water production
  • Pressure and acoustic sensors that are connected to wirelessly to a cloud base monitoring can help companies to locate the leaks much faster to resolve the issue.

Sources

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/new-water-technologies-save-planet

Low-Tech Solution for High-Profile SDG (Water Scarcity)

Peter Clarence SchottLeave a comment
CloudFisher fog-harvesters on a mountain

Peter Schott // pcs2144

(1) Sustainability Problem: Water
Per the UN, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains one of the world’s most water-scare regions, with 17 countries considered below the water poverty line. Around 1.1M people lack reliable access to water and 2.7M live in regions where water scarcity exists for at least one month of the year.

(2) Water scarcity is an issue – analysts predict that water scarcity may contribute to future conflict in the region.

  • Agriculture comprises of 80% of the water usage in the MENA region; often the cultivation of crops, specifically citrus fruit in rural Morocco, has depleted the natural groundwater reserves and aquifers at a rate faster than replenishment
  • Seawater desalination and dams are the current tools used to address water scarcity in the region, however they come with several negative externalities
  • In Morocco specifically, the NGO Dar Si Hmad has partnered with German WaterFoundation to utilized their CloudFisher fog-harvesters, which use no energy, to collect up to 600L+ of drinking water per day per net*
  • The CloudFisher technology can withstand win speeds up to 120kph while catching water droplets in the air that (often) comply with WHO drinking water standards*

    Article: Can tech advances solve arid Middle East’s water scarcity problem?, Arab News

(3) Stakeholders:
Stakeholders include NGOs that provide local solutions to rural farmers and villages in the MENA region.
An example of this in Morocco is Dar Si Hmad for Development (NGO) connecting the CloudFisher fog-harvesters (local solution) to 16 villages in rural Morocco.
Additionally, Governments and Ministers are stakeholders as “water is the lifeblood of civilizations that shape economies, as said by Reem Al-Hasimy, UAW minister of state.

(4) Deployment/Adoption/Implementation:
Given that the focus of this is to drive end-user (customer) adoption, the below does not contain steps to fix the broader water scarcity problem across MENA; additionally, influencing government will delay broader adoption but is needed to create a robust market.

  • Educate communities and farmers about the importance of water, specifically the importance of protecting water supplies, to help introduce good conservation habits and available technologies
  • Pilot the CloudFisher technology in communities, collecting data around environmental conditions (weather, air temp, etc.), water collected, time spent by community to harvest, etc.; attempt to create a business case as to what the technology actually achieves (is it time saved, money saved, lives saved, etc.)
  • Explore conversations with government to discuss the importance of water scarcity in the MENA region, the success of the pilot program, the impact of international trade on water scarcity; propose a potential export tax through policy that could be used to provide solutions such as CloudFisher to farmer villages, in an effort to provide drinking water

Additional Sources:
*https://www.wasserstiftung.de/en/cloudfisher/

Slingshot Can Provide Clean Water to Many

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Source: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1410195-slingshot-segway-inventor-says-end-of-clean-water-is-near-built-incredible-h2o-purifier/

“‘SlingShot’: Segway Inventor Says End of Clean Water Is Near—So He Built a Solution”

1)Sustainability Problem – Clean drinking water is becoming more and more scarce on Earth.

2) – More than 3.5 million people die every year from water-related diseases, and almost 900 million don’t have access to a safe water supply.

– The Slingshot is a “vapor compression distiller” that uses solar energy to boil, distill and vaporize the bad gunk and turn it into clear and clean drinking water. It was created by inventor Dean Kamen and his inventing company, DEKA Research and Development

–  Each Slingshot can purify 1000 liters of water per day, which can essentially support the water needs of 100 people. Plus it only uses a small amount of electricity.

– Slingshot is expensive to produce so Kamen he realized he must partner with companies that can distribute Slingshots globally.

3)Organizational Stakeholders – DEKA Research and Development, Consumers, Private companies used for public-private partnership

4)Deployment Steps

– Continue research to drive costs down.  Third world countries will not be able to afford Slingshots at current cost.

– Find key areas that are in most need of clean water without access to it.  Target these places and determine whether Slingshot would be a viable solution for them.

– Create public-private partnerships in these areas in order to set up Slingshots for the people to use.

Water Filters that Can Save Millions

jpsibi2 Comments

Sustainability Problem

80% of illnesses are linked to poor water and sanitation conditions in developing countries and 1 out of every 5 deaths under the age of 5 worldwide is due to a water-related disease.

Technology Article

Revolutionary new graphene water filters could save millions of lives around the world by Katie Medlock, 3/11/2016

  • Researchers have developed a graphene water filter that could provide fresh, safe drinking water to people around the world.
  • The filter cleans water 9 times faster than current filters and is able to filter out bacteria and viruses.
  • Until now, graphene water filters have been expensive and hard to produce on an industrial scale.
  • By creating a viscous graphene oxide, the researchers have given way for the opportunity to filter water on a large scale.

Stakeholders

  • Researchers who created the graphene water filters
  • People in need of clean water
  • Companies who invest in the technology and produce it on a mass-scale

Deployment

  • The filter enters the commercial market.
  • Through donations or public-private partnerships, the filters are sent to developing countries where clean water is needed.
  • The filters are distributed to people in need.

Other sources:

MIITO – the sustainable alternative to the electric kettle

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1.Sustainability Problem

In order to make a simple cup of tea, you end up overfilling the kettle. This wastes energy and water and also means you have to wait longer for it to heat up. Energy consumption because of the kettle water overfilling when boiling is far higher than what we would normally assume. According to Leyla Acaroglu during her 2014 TED Talk “One day of extra energy use [from overfilling electric kettles] is enough to light all the streetlights in England for a night.”

2) The technology

MIITO uses simple induction technology to essentially wirelessly transfer heat. Its base creates an electromagnetic field which will then heat any ferrous material on its surface, in this case the disc attached to the bottom of the rod. Once the rod is placed inside a vessel filled with  liquid, the rod’s disc will heat up and directly transfer heat to just the liquid in the vessel, contrary to microwave ovens.

By heating only the liquid you need directly in the vessel you’ll drink from, it avoids wasting extra liquid and use less energy to heat it. Induction technology is 80-90% energy efficient in heating liquids. Electric kettles are only 50-80% efficient, microwave ovens are around 43% efficient and water heated on a stove is only 16-27% energy efficient, when boiling the same amount of liquid. Amongst many others, it has won the James Dyson Award for its lean, simple, and sustainable design.

3) Stakeholders

  • Customers
  • Investors
  • Crowdfunders
  • MITTO, the developers of the product
  • Local governments

4) Implementation

  • The company has successfully run a Kickstarter campaign in 2015 where they gathered €818,098 pledged of €150,000 goal.
  • Since September 2015, the product is in its development phase.
  • Once the product is launched, targeted media campaigns should raise awareness on the product and make it available worldwide.
  • It would be desirable for local governments to encourage the use of this kind of devices by using some for of ‘sustainable’ labelling, as well as promotions.

5) References

http://www.miito.com

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/747044530/miito-the-sustainable-alternative-to-the-electric/posts/1609808

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/tea-kettle-alternative-thats-cooler-cleaner-eco-friendly/

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29245299

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/08/innovators-boiling-point-redesigning-kettle-miito

Dean Kamen’s Slingshot Aims To Bring Fresh Water To The World

lp25391 Comment

 

Sustainability Problem: We are running out of potable water, and the current ways of purifying water are too energy intensive.

Technology: 

  1. Heat recovery to minimize energy use
  2. Vapor-compression evaporation – eliminates all toxins from water
  3. Stirling engine

Stakeholders:

  • Governments
  • Any citizen in the world

Steps to deploy technology:

  • Make it energy efficient
  • Find partner to help distribute globally
  • Prepare maintenance procedure

 

 

 

A billboard that creates water out of thin air

rcornejocrosby1 Comment

Screen Shot 2016-06-07 at 15.44.31

Sustainability Problem

Lima, Peru, is the second largest city in the world that is located in a desert after Cairo, which makes its inhabitants vulnerable to the scarcity of water. This issue affects specially the population that lives in the poorer outskirts of the city, who often depend on wells as the main source of this element. The main water sources of the city are three rivers that during the winter (dry season in the Andes) depend on glaciers as their main source. However, according to a study in the journal The Cryosphere, Andean glaciers have shrunk between 30% and 50% since the 70’s, which threatens the availability of fresh water in the future.

The solution: A billboard that creates drinking water out of thin air

The University of Engineering and Technology of Peru (UTEC) built a billboard that captures air humidity and produces potable water in Bujama, a district located in the outskirts of Lima that gets less than two inches of rain a year. However, this place has an atmospheric humidity of 98%, according to UTEC. This technology consists in a system that uses a water purifying process called reverse osmosis to produce water out of the humidity and stores it in 20 liter tanks. Finally, the potable drinking water is dispensed at the bottom of the billboard.

Screen Shot 2016-06-07 at 15.47.12

Stakeholders

  • The population of the Bujama district, located in the south of Lima, Peru.
  • The target audience of UTEC: potential new undergraduate students of engineering programs of UTEC.

Implementation 

UTEC wanted to attract potential engineering applicants by demonstrating an innovative solution to a sustainability problem through technology. The university identified the problem of water scarcity and determined the ideal place to locate the billboard that would solve that issue while announcing application deadlines: right next to the Panamerican Highway, south of Lima.

Source

 

 

Parabosol: providing safe drinking water in remote areas

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Technology: Parabosol is a portable solar powered water treatment system for use in remote areas.

  • Physical and purifying filtration is conducted by using a parabolic mirror that boils water at a temperature up to 400 degree Celsius.
  • The water first passes through a sand filter to catch particles.
  • Secondly, the water is collected in a water container where it is purified using the steam generated by the parabolic mirror.
  • And lastly, the water passes through a carbon filter to remove odor-dissolved gases.
  • The system consists of one contaminated water container, one purification container and two clean water containers.
  • This technology can clean up to 170 liters of water in a single use.

Problem:

  • Statistics vary but the WHO states that “1.1 billion people has no access to any type of improved drinking source of water.” http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/mdg1/en/
  • water.org puts this figure at about 663 million people that lack access to safe drinking water (about 1 in 10 people)
  • A lack of safe drinking water has a strong impact on health and mortality as can be seen by the millions of people who suffer from waterborne diseases.

Stakeholders:

  • Engineers / Designers of the technology
  • Suppliers of materials
  • Sales and marketing
    • Who can sell this technology and get additional funding/investment
  • Investors
    • who can finance the implementation of these solar panels
  • NGOs and project managers
    • who can help assist with the implementation through actual installation, maintenance and education of communities for how to maintain it themselves
  • Local communities
    • who will be benefiting from this technology also need to be receptive to it.

Implementation:

It is unclear what stage this technology is in with regard to implementation, however it did win awards in 2014 and 2015.

A plausible implementation process for such a technology, however, would be:

  • Seek funding and investments to launch a pilot project
  • Partner with an NGO that has ties to a community where it could implement such a technology
  • Launch pilot project and monitor outcomes / problems that arise
  • Made adjustments to technology/ additional R&D
  • Marketing of success of pilot / get additional funding
  • Continue partnership and implementation across communities

Sources:

http://www.designnobis.com/index.php?r=site/product&id=192

http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/mdg1/en/

http://water.org/water-crisis/water-sanitation-facts/