Solar Stills, a low-tech way to distill sea water, powered by heat of sun with improvised water output efficiency, will soon be made available to industry for commercial utilisation, a top CSMCRI official said.
“Through innovation we have doubled water output of stills, which earlier used to be 3—4 litre a day. They shall be entering trial phase and soon be available for commercial production,” the Director of Central Salt Marine and Chemical Research Institute (CSMCRI), Dr Pushpito Ghosh, told PTI.
Solar Stills technique is ideal for installation in households falling in remote areas of saline water regions to meet their drinking water requirements.
“Making a prototype of the still costs around Rs 10,000 a unit, but once it goes for commercial production its cost is expected to be much lower as economy of scale comes into play,” Dr Ghosh said.
The novel units having easy clean option for the black base at the bottom, for better efficiency, have been developed by the CSMCRI Chemical Engineering wing.
“During summers one can draw up to 7 litres of drinking water per day from these Still units. In initial trials, even in months such as December we got 5 ltrs per day output of water from it,” the Chemical Engineer at CSMCRI, Subarna Maiti, said.
The trials of these units are to be conducted in remote areas of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Southern (Rameshwaram), Eastern (Sunderbans) and Northern regions of India, where availability of safe drinking water in households under saline water regions is an issue, Dr Ghosh said.
Bhavnagar-based CSMCRI, a laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has filed for a provisional Indian patent for this new device.