Water Purifier Generates Electricity and Creates Wi-Fi Connections
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Technology
Imagine a machine that can turn contaminated water from a river, ocean or even sewage into drinking water, while at the same time generating enough electricity to power itself with surplus, and connecting everywhere within a kilometre radius to Wi-Fi.
It sounds too good to be true, but Marco Attisani has created just that. Watly is a solar-powered water purification machine that can service a community of up to 3,000 people.
The project is designed to solve three major weaknesses in infrastructure all at once: access to water, electricity and internet. Across the world, 783 million people do not have access to clean water, 1.2 billion lack access to electricity, and 4.2 billion are still without internet access.
Watly isn't just designed for developing countries. It can also help communities that have high levels of sunlight, but struggle to find sustainable solutions to generating clean water. 
"The only things it needs to run are dirty water and a lot of Sun," said Attisani, the 44-year-old Italian creator of Watly. From that it can purify 5,000 litres of water and "generate enough electricity to power itself and to power external devices."
The current prototype weighs 15 tonnes, equivalent to the weight of eight or nine cars, and looks like a large H-shaped tent.
In 2015, after a successful trial of Watly 2.0 in Ghana, the company won €2 million euros (£1.6 million) in funding from organisations including Horizon 2020, the European Union's biggest research and innovation programme, and European Pioneers, a Berlin-based accelerator for future internet technologies.
The company is currently looking for a further $75,000 (£52,000) through crowdfunding site IndieGogo.
The commercialised Watly costs €400,000 to build, but Attisani said that money should be seen as an investment for companies and governments. "This is not a machine we expect people that don't have access to water to buy," said Attisani.
After the initial cost, Watly will run for free for up to 15 years, the company estimates. And in that time it will provide 3 million litres of clean water a year, enough for 3,000 people, electricity for thousands of devices, and Wi-Fi for a kilometre-wide radius.
Watly has been in development since 2013, when Attisani created the first version in three months. It will unveil its first working prototype in the summer of 2016, with the aim to make another by the end of the year.
Watly is powered by photovolatic solar panels that line its shell and generate heat and energy. This solar energy fuels the water purification and internet connectivity.
"It has been designed in an H shape to follow the Sun throughout the day," said Attisani.
Source: Telegraph
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