startupsristi1.weebly.com · Web viewLuisa Nicole Wasilewski [email protected] Ahmedabad, 26.10.14 GRIT Assignment “Innovation in Any Sector – CleanDrinking Water” Task:

Luisa Nicole Wasilewski

[email protected]

Ahmedabad, 26.10.14

GRIT Assignment

“Innovation in Any Sector – CleanDrinking Water”

Task: Students are expected to review outstanding innovations in design, delivery, and review of any field of public policy, such as health, education, infrastructure, entrepreneurship, transport, trade and environment, sanitation, drinking water, sports, media, youth, elderly, etc.

Globally, more than 783 million people lack access to clean water sources and 2.5 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation. This results in number of 6 to 8 million people dying annually from the consequences of disasters and water-related diseases.1 Freshwater makes up a very small fraction of all water on the planet: while nearly 70% of the world is covered by water, only 2.5% of it is fresh. Additionally, just 1% of our freshwater is easily accessible, with much of it trapped in glaciers and snowfields. In essence, only 0.007% of the planet's water is available to supply its 6.8 billion people. The UN is expecting water availability to decrease in many regions. Yet future global agricultural water consumption alone is estimated to increase by ~19% by 2050, and will be even greater in the absence of any technological progress or policy intervention. It accounts for ~70% of global freshwater withdrawals (up to 90% in some fast-growing economies). Water for irrigation and food production constitutes one of the greatest pressures on freshwater resources.2 Water supply of clean water is a global problem which needs to be addressed by the policy makers, businesses and innovators throughout the world. Nearly 450 agreements on international waters were signed between 1820 and 2007 (OSU, 2007). However, technological innovations play a big role in finding a solution for shortage of safe water. The goal for many environmental responsible organizations is to provide clean water solutions at affordable prices, with low technology requirements on a global scale. Unilever for example is supporting innovators that are looking for a partner to make their safe-water-solution reality. Unilever therefore defines clean drinking water as follows:

1http://www.unwater.org/water-cooperation-2013/water-cooperation/facts-and-figures/en/2http://www.unwater.org/water-cooperation-2013/water-cooperation/facts-and-figures/en/

- free of parasitical organisms (protozoanoocysts such as Cryptosporidium, Giardia lamblia, Legionella)

- free of bacteria (coliform bacteria, E. coli, Vibrio cholera) - free of viruses (enteric) - free of soil, chemicals, and other physical contaminants.3

In the following text I will review outstanding innovations of various kinds regarding the shortage problem of clean water.

History

First, I would like to draw the attention on the historic development and historic innovations of water purifying/ filtering - what today is the base of many innovations for developing countries. Cleaning water for drinking purposes goes back to the ancient Greek time dating back to 2000 B.C. People already discovered that boiling and filtering water reduces visible particles, color, and smell of the water. The Greek discovered the first cloth filter around 500 B.C. The scientist Hippocrates invented the “Hippocratic sleeve” which filtered water after being boiled. However, in ancient times when water was not polluted with chemistries the main strategy was to bring in clean water from outside sources; examples are the Romans with their aqueducts or the city of London constructing the London's New River in the early 17th century. The New River was a slow flowing river, which helped to increase sedimentation. It had screens installed every few miles to catch any debris and weeds. These screens required periodic maintenance and workmen were employed to clean them and cut back the weeds. The New River would meet London's needs well enough that there were few complaints before the 19th century, although the water supplied was rarely used for drinking directly, rather it was more likely used for washing or brewing of beer.4

The first documented use of something like a sand filters for water purification dates back to 1804 when John Gibb installed an experimental filter that strained water through grains of sand to remove bigger particles of contamination. This method was refined in the following two decades by engineers working for private water companies, and it culminated in the first treated public water supply in the world, installed by engineer James Simpson for the Chelsea Waterworks Company in London in 1829. This installation provided filtered water for every resident of the area, and the network design was widely copied throughout the United Kingdom and other big cities in Europe in the ensuing decades.5

3http://www.unilever.com/innovation/collaborating-with-unilever/challenging-and-wants/safe-drinking-water/4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_municipal_treatment_of_drinking_water5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_water_filters

Super Sand

Recently scientists have developed a way to transform ordinary sand into so called "super sand" with five times the filtering capacity of regular sand. The new material could be a low-cost innovation for developing countries. The researchers have found a way to coat sand grains with graphite oxide, creating a type of sand that successfully removes mercury and a dye molecule from water. Important fact about the graphite oxide is that it is widely available and commonly used as lead in pencils. In the mercury test, ordinary sand was saturated within 10 minutes of filtration, while the super sand absorbed the heavy metal for more than 50 minutes. The scientists commented that “Its filtration performance is comparable to some commercially available activated carbon". Further research is in progress as they investigating strategies that will enable them to assemble functionalized GO particles on the sand grains to further enhance contaminant removal efficiencies.6

Potters for Peace Water Filter Project

Ceramic water filters are an inexpensive and effective way to filter polluted water. The small pore size of the ceramic material filters dirt, debris, and bacteria out of water.7 It is a very basic method to clean water and therefore can be used in many underdeveloped countries. The Potters for Peace Water Filter Project is supporting this solution; their objective is to make safe drinking water available by helping set up workshops that will produce ceramic water filters made from local materials. These filters are low-tech and low-cost and eliminate approximately 99.88% of water-born disease agents. The project started in 1998 and today ceramic water filters (CWF) with the Potters for Pease technology are produced in over 50 independent factories in over 30 countries. The organization teaches how to make effective CWFs and does not produce or sell the filters by themselves. The filter design they use was developed by Dr. Fernando Mazariegos in Guatemala in 1981; his goal was to make bacterially contaminated water safe for the poorest of the poor by developing a low-cost filter that could be fabricated at the community level. Potters for Peace does not operate filter-making facilities or sell filters but they provide workshops and training for others to do so. The filter factories that they support and advice are run as independent businesses owned by organizations or

6http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110622102831.htm7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_water_filter

individuals. Outstanding about the CWFs is that many people in developing countries can produce them by themselves and the special technology - the filters are treated with silver - helps to kill or incapacitate bacteria and prevent the growth of mold ad algae in the body of the filter.8 Therefore these filters are the highest-rated product for rural point-of-use water treatment.9

About the filter and their production: A ceramic water filter is a simple, bucket-shaped (11” wide by 10” deep) clay vessel that is made from a mix (by weight) of local terra-cotta clay and sawdust or other combustibles, such as rice husks. The filters are formed by using a press and fired to about 860ºC. The result are porous clay walls that are then tested to make sure they meet a standard rate of filtration and lastly they are coated with colloidal silver. The organization also focuses on cultural aspects that can be enhanced through the project, as in coloring or painting the clay filters.

How the filter functions: After fired and treated the filter is placed in a five-gallon plastic or ceramic receptacle with a lid and faucet. Water passes through the clay filter element at the rate of 1.5 to 2.5 liters per hour. Pricing is determined by local production costs at $15 to $25 for ready-to-use filter units, including the receptacle. Replacement clay filters will cost $4 to $6. A basic production facility with three or four workers can produce about fifty filters a day.10

Potters for Peace Ceramic Filter

Nevertheless, just small hairline cracks and cross-contamination can diminish the success of such ceramic filters. If the filter is dropped or otherwise damaged, the brittle nature of ceramic materials can allow fine, hard to see cracks, and can allow larger contaminants through the filter. Moreover, the user has to be careful not to pollute the "clean" water side of the ceramic membrane with dirty water, hands, etc., then the filtration will be ineffective. But if such pollution occurs, the clean side of the filter can be sterilized before reusing.11

8 http://pottersforpeace.com/about-us/9 Smart Disinfection Solutions, 201010http://pottersforpeace.com/ceramic-water-filter-project/11http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_water_filter

EnvironNor - Converted Oil Tankers Providing Fresh Water

Star of Hope, an international development non-profit organization, and innovators have been working on an outstanding project called “Aqua Recovery” to provide floating water plants to regions with scarce water supply, such as Haiti, Kenya and Philippines. The NGO is supporting Sigmund Larsen, an experienced Norwegian senior shipping officer, CEO of tech start-up EnviroNor, who developed the idea and founded the company. The concept of EnvironNor is to tackle the challenge of global water supply by treating and reusing wastewater to purifying and desalinating river and seawater; “Aqua Recovery” will use phased out tankers anchored offshore for recycling of wastewater. By converting, for example, a 15-year-old product tanker can treat the wastewater from a city of 250.000 inhabitants. 12

Four different types of vessels address different challenges: The “Reliever”, “Change Maker”, “Water Factory”, and “Emergency Relief Vessel”. The “Reliever” is a converted ship that can treat wastewater, for example while a land-based plant is being modified, expanded or repaired. The “Change Maker” is a treatment plant that treats wastewater from domestic and industry and reuse the water for irrigation or industrial purposes. The important fact is that the water can be cleaned to drinking water standard and therefore provide water for several purposes. The “Water Factory” is specifically designed to treat polluted river water until it has drinking water quality. The designers identified target markets to be rivers in China and other densely populated places where drinking water is in short supply. The “Emergency Relief Vessel” is designed to produce clean drinking water for the population in catastrophic areas, that lack access to any clean water source, by converting seawater into drinking water.13

12 http://www.starofhope.us/news/latest-news/1256-converted-oil-tankers-providing-fresh-water.html?gclid=CO2H8qjXxMECFVDItAodhk4AQA13 http://www.starofhope.us/news/latest-news/1256-converted-oil-tankers-providing-fresh-water.html?gclid=CO2H8qjXxMECFVDItAodhk4AQA

Four different vessels, Source: environor.com

Direct-contact membrane distillation (DCMD) system

This innovation addresses the problem of turning seawater into drinking water. As I mentioned only 70% of the world is covered with water with less than 1% can be accessed and drunken. Of those 70% almost 98% is oceanic water. Innovations focusing on technological solutions turning salt water into drinking water would bring the global society very far. However, removing salt from water has been inefficient and costly using existing technologies. Nevertheless, the New Jersey Institute of Technology chemical engineering professor KamaleshSirkar has developed the direct-contact membrane distillation (DCMD) system. A new, more energy-efficient seawater distillation membrane has been designed to yield greater amounts of potable water, and less briny discharge. In the system, heated seawater flows across a plastic membrane (made of a porous, yet hydrophobic, fiber) containing a series of hollow tubes filled with cold distilled water which causes vapor to form on the tubes. This vapor diffuses through the pores and condenses again inside the tubes, joining the flow of cold distillate water. The salt cannot penetrate the tubes and is carried away; with each cycle, more fresh water is drawn off, leaving more highly concentrated brine behind. According to Sirkar, the system can deliver about 80 liters of drinking water per 100 liters of seawater. A comparable reverse-osmosis system—which relies on pressure to force seawater through a salt-filtering membrane—would reclaim 41 liters from that same amount of saltwater.14

One problem of the system is that it requires a steady, inexpensive source of heat to prevent the temperatures of the water on either side of the membrane from equalizing. To

14 Greenfield, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/desalination-membrane-tech/

be successfully applied in developing countries the system needs to be easier to use, more cost-effective and able to take advantage of available heat sources, including waste heat produced by places such as shore-based factories and offshore drilling operations.

Tridax – Indian Herbs - Water Filters

Drinking water can contain natural fluoride and sometimes fluoride is added as a protective agent for teeth by water companies in some countries. However, its presence is not without controversy and in some natural drinking water levels may be above those considered safe by the World Health Organisation. The WHO guidelines suggest that a safe level of fluoride is 1.5 milligrams per liter. Several methods have been developed and tested to decrease fluoride level in drinking water, including coagulation, adsorption, precipitation, ion exchange, reverse osmosis, and electrodialysis. However, metal ions with an affinity for fluoride in a biocarbon matrix are new promising approach. Chemist Malairajan Singanan of the Presidency College in Chennai has investigated Tridax procumbens, which is commonly used as a medicinal herb in India, as a biocarbon absorbent for fluoride. Previously, the herb has been tested in the extraction of toxic heavy metals from water.

Tridax procumbens flower

The results show that by loading up plant tissue with aluminum ions it is possible create a safe biocarbon filter that will readily absorb fluoride ions from water warmed to around 27 Celsius passing through the filter. The trials show that it takes just three hours to remove 98% of fluoride with just 2 grams of the biocarbon filter. The biocarbon filter has the possibility to provide a low-cost, easy-to-use filtering system in regions with extensive fluoride levels in ground water, including India, China, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Spain, Holland, Italy, Mexico, North and South America.15

15 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130305100928.htm

Life Straw Products

Life straw water filters contaminated water with bacteria, protozoa and viruses safe to drink. There are three Life Straw products –Life Straw Go, Life Straw, and Life Straw Family - which are designed to be durable, lightweight, and require no electricity or batteries.

Life Straw Go is a refillable portable water bottle that can be easily taken anywhere. By pouring it through the mouthpiece water from a river or a pond can be drunk. Life Straw personal water filter functions like a straw and can turn up to 1,000 liters of contaminated water into safe drinking water – enough for one person in one year - weighting 2 ounces and measuring 9 inches long. There are various usages for Life Straw: hiking, backpacking, camping, travel, and emergency preparedness. Life Straw Family high volume water purifier is a lightweight, portable water purifying water system that can purify 18,000 liter of water. Water is forced through the narrow fibers and under high pressure in the filter system. Viruses, bacteria, protozoa, and other contaminants are trapped inside the hollow fibers and re-flushed out by backwashing. How to use the Life Straw Family system: Hang the purifier with the red tap several inches from the ground. Pour collected water through the pre-filter in the dark blue bucket and then open the red tap for 3 seconds so that the water can flush through the filter. Place a drinking vessel under the blue tap to collect filtered water. When you’re finished, close all the taps, squeeze the red bulb until flat, then open the red tap and let the remaining water drain from the filter.

 LifeStraw Go LifeStraw LifeStraw Family 1.0

Sling Shot Water Vapor Distillation System

Slingshot is a water purification device that claims to be able to produce drinking water from different sources - river water, ocean water and even raw sewage  - requires no filters, and can operate using cow dung as fuel. The system was created by inventor Dean Kamen. The technology uses an approach copied from Mother Nature: the system boils and evaporates any dirty water source, allows condense of the pure water and collects it and flushes out contaminants. Slingshot delivers approximately 800 liters of clean water daily at the hourly electricity cost of less than a standard handheld hair dryer (1kWh). Slingshot is ideal for use in rural areas; it can easily be connected to the local grid or powered grids by other locally available and renewable power sources including solar cells, batteries, and DEKA R&D‘s Stirling electric generator, which runs on biogases such as methane from local waste sources. 16

In October 2012, Kamen and Coca Cola CEO Muhtar Kent announced at the Clinton Global Initiative that in collaboration with DEKA Research, Africare and Inter-American Development Bank; the goal of the project is to bring Slingshot to rural parts of Latin America and Africa. The target industries for the first initiative will health centers and schools in remote communities in Latin America in 2013. Furthermore, in September 2013 Coca Cola has been introducing the so called “Ekocenters”, modular kiosks built around Slingshot units to bring clean water and basic necessities to the developing world. The target is by 2015, 100 million Liters of clean safe water will be delivered to 45,000 people across 20 countries.17

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SlingShot machine Coca Cola EkoCenter, Source: http://assets.coca-colacompany.com /42/13/4e2e25c848899315c65117d413b4/ekocenter-and-goods-sold.jpg

16 http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/slingshot-how-it-works17 http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/slingshot-how-it-works

Midomo Water Purifier

Midomo water purifier is a simple and effective 3-in-1 water carrier, purifier and storage unit. Red Button Design designed and developed the prototype and pitchd it at the Dragon’s Den back in 2007. They were offered £50,000 by the dragonsm which was followed by an offer of £45,000 grant by Oxford University’s Saïd Business School. They were able to turn down the television investors and keep all their business for themselves. The founders have now spent £300,000 developing the product and the sixth version is in use in communities in Mwingi and Kenya - the sub-Saharan Africa. Using Midomo one person can collect and transport 50 liters of water from any water source and during the time it transports it home the water has been filtered and purified and is ready to drink. A Midomo costs approx. £100 each and provides a family with enough water for a day – you need to push it for 2.2km to filter 50 liters of water. In countries like Africa school kids, specially girls, are suppose to collect water for their families; Midomo enables school girls to collect water in the morning and then go to school for the day and still have time to do their homework at night.18

Midomo filter system, Source: http://www.shell-livewire.org/news/midomo-site

Conclusion

In conclusion, we have seen that many innovators and entrepreneurs are trying to find an effective and sustainable solution to the problem of drinking water scarcity. Some innovations such as the Pottery for Peace program, Life Straw products, and Midomo are being used all over the world. Also big corporations such as Coca Cola and Unilever are supporting solutions for the water problem. Unilever has put the “Clean water project” in

18 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenpolitics/developingworld/8852552/Eco-hero-The-water-filter-entrepreneur.html

place, which encourages entrepreneurs to approach the FCG giant and receive opportunities for financing and consulting on the innovation/ solution.

Unilver.com: We have some ideas for areas where innovation could meet this challenge:

Solar water disinfection: Exposure to sunlight deactivates diarrhoea-causing organisms.

Filtration: Filters might consist of paper, porous solids (ceramics), high-tech membrane, clean sand or diatomaceous earth. 

Atmospheric collection technologies: Rainwater harvesting, fog collection, air wells, and other atmospheric collection technologies could all collect water that requires little treatment.

Source: http://www.unilever.com/innovation/collaborating-with-unilever/challenging-and-wants/safe-drinking-water/

However, fresh water is a borderless resource and water pollution is a borderless burden, that somehow every nations has to consider today. Therefore, to solve the problem of drinking water scarcity in the future, all countries have work together and a legal framework has to be established. The UN has of course several projects in place. In 2013 was the UN International Year of Water Cooperation, on which the UNGA recognizes that “cooperation is essential to strike a balance between the different needs and priorities and share this precious resource equitably, using water as an instrument of peace. Promoting water cooperation implies an interdisciplinary approach bringing in cultural, educational and scientific factors, as well as religious, ethical, social, political, legal, institutional and economic dimensions.”19 The European Commission is concerned with this topic as well and putting policies, networks and research in place.

The main pillars of the European Commission policy are to: Ensure that drinking water quality is controlled through standards based on the

latest scientific evidence; Secure an efficient and effective monitoring, assessment and enforcement of

drinking water quality; Provide the consumers with adequate, timely and appropriately information; Contribute to the broader EU water and health policy.

Source: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-drink/index_en.html

19 http://www.unwater.org/water-cooperation-2013/water-cooperation/en/