Novel device to make sea water potable

Chennai, May 25: With the drinking water crisis becoming acute by the day, a Kanyakumari-based Instrumentation engineer has come up with an answer to the perennial problem -- a unique water purifier to make sea water potable using solar power.

The device, which should be kept afloat, worked on the principle of evaporation, Mr J Johnny, who developed the system after three years of experimentation, told UNI here.

The innovative invention could provide 40 litres of potable water from sea water in an hour's time, he claimed.

The six ft by four ft unit, which had a rectangular glass enclosure with perforated bottom, was demonstrated at Foreshore Estate here.

''As the unit floats, sea water enters the system and gets filtered through a micron sheet. The filtered water then evaporates and percolates into a channel that leads to a water container,'' he explained, adding that the purified water would be clear and tasteless.

The current capacity of the purifier was one litre of water per sqft of the machine. It could, however, be enhanced by expanding the size of the system.

Mr Johnny claimed that this type of purified water had many advantages over the existing boil-evaporation type of purifiers.

''The system does not use fuel or chemicals and there is no need to change cartridges or equipment like Reverse Osmosis plants,'' he said, adding that the system could be put to commercial use if several such units were floated and anchored offshore in a kilometre area from the coast so that waves do not upset it.

UNI