MIT’s Solar Water Purifier is Serving 600 Puerto Ricans Daily
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Technology
An off-grid, battery-less system from MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Infinitum Humanitarian Systems will be run indefinitely by a local Boys and Girls Club. The system is called the Water Aid and Renewable Power (WARP) system.
Representative image, source: Pixabay
Puerto Ricans in the coastal town of Loíza stood in a line that stretched seven blocks, waiting hours for bags of ice and bottles of water. Dirty sewer water flooded a canal in the town. At least one person had died from the bacterial disease leptospirosis, most likely from drinking contaminated water. There was no power.
That was the scene in late October, when a disaster response team consisting of staff from MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Infinitum Humanitarian Systems (IHS), supported by the Roddenberry Foundation, visited the town, which is located roughly an hour east of the capital city of San Juan. At the time, some residents had been without electricity for 45 days, since Hurricane Irma. The rest was knocked out by Hurricane Maria.
Five days later, taps outside the Boys and Girls Club in Loíza ran with clean, safe drinking water.
A water purifier, powered completely by the sun, now pumps in polluted municipal water and pours out 850 pure gallons per day for public consumption in Loíza. Rooftop rain barrels provide a backup water source if municipal water stops flowing. The system is called the Water Aid and Renewable Power (WARP) system.
WARP is a new version of a water purification system that the IHS/Roddenberry Foundation team has been installing in disaster-stricken communities around the world since 2013. The original system requires a generator to power pumps and purification equipment. A consistent fuel supply for the generator can be difficult to get after any disaster, no less so following the hurricanes in Puerto Rico. Still, without an alternative system, the IHS/Roddenberry team had prepared to deploy it on the island.
Read full article and take a look at exclusive photos: MIT
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- Solar Water Disinfection
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- Solar Energy
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- Sanitation & Hygiene
- Drinking Water
- water treatment
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