€3.6m to Develop a Low-Cost Method of Disinfecting Drinking Water Using Sunlight
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Technology
Led by researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, WATERSPOUTT aims to reduce the number of people around the globe who rely on unsafe drinking water
The international collaboration plans to use technology based on solar water disinfection or SODIS to kill harmful microbes in water.
The technique is already employed by five million people in poor and developing countries.
But according to the project team, a further 660 million people in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere could utilise the method to ensure they have clean water to drink, if a suitable low cost technology existed to enable them to do so.
In particular WATERSPOUTT will try to develop technology to allow up to 20 litres of water to be cleaned each day in one container, rather than the current practice of using a number of two litre bottles.
It aims to bring three products to market - a solar rainwater reactor, solar jerrycan and solar-ceramic filtration system.
The project has received funding of €3.6m from the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme to complete its work and will be piloted in Uganda, South Africa, Ethiopia and Malawi.
The collaboration also involves scientists from Maynooth University, Dublin City University and 15 other bodies across Europe and Africa.
Source: RTE News
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Taxonomy
- Drinking Water Treatment
- UV Disinfection
- Solar Water Disinfection
- Research