University of Washington Students Introduce Cost-Effective Solar Device to Monitor Water Infection

A cost-effective solar powered device, introduced by the engineering students of the University of Washington, is expected to save the children all over the world who die due to water contamination. The tool allows the use of solar rays to disinfect the water and identifies the potability of the drinking water.

World over millions of people utilize SODIS (Solar disinfection of water in plastic bottles) process to make the water clean and fit for drinking. The simple process utilizes a clean PET bottle filled contaminated water and keep it exposed to direct sun for a period of 6 hours or to irregular sun rays for a period of 12 hours. The process followed properly disinfects the water in the same way as a chlorination process and makes it fit to drink. The testing kit introduced by the students includes a solar powered calculator to check the correct sun exposure period of the PET bottle to assess the purity and fitness of the water. The students anticipate that the production cost of the device from its current cost of $3.40 can be brought down further if produced on mass scale.

The device has won the students a prize in an international level contest that asked for designing a system to observe the level of water disinfection utilizing sun rays. The students have plans to set up a not for profit type of business to manufacture and market the device for the benefit of the end users.