This Electricity-Free Purifier Cleans 500 Litres of Water Every Day!
At a time when many engineering graduates prefer to travel abroad to pursue their master’s or find a job and settle there to earn some good money, here is an engineering graduate who decided to stay back and is working as a research scholar at Mahakal Institute of Technology (MIT) in Ujjain.
Meet Jitendra Singh Choudhary who has researched for four and a half years to develop a machine that can recycle water. Born to marginal farmers in a small village in Madhya Pradesh, the young boy had failed his Class 10 exams and decided to move to Rajasthan to give education a second shot. After Class 12, he prepared to crack the much-coveted IIT exam, but to no avail.
A few failed plans later, the young boy returned to his home state and pursued his degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT Ujjain. It was during a trip in 2013 into the interiors of the state, where he first noticed the jarring water crisis.
It was during his degree when he started working on a project, which he later went on to name Shuddham, to bring out a prototype of a machine that can recycle water.
Using zero electricity, ‘Shuddham’ works on the principle of gravity, where it repurposes water used in washrooms, by making it undergo a series of filtration procedures and then releases the recycled water from the machine’s lowermost segment.
“The water is cleaned within a span of a few minutes through granular sieving which is later followed by active carbon ultrafiltration. The machine is also equipped with an anti-choke mechanism. This ensures that there are no blockages in the flow of the water and that dirty granules do not mix with the clean, purified water.”
Jitendra completed his Mechanical Engineering degree in 2017 from MIT. He then went on to apply for the post of a research assistant at the MIT Group of Institutions.
The 25-year-old who has filed three patents for Shuddham and published four papers in national and international conferences was bestowed the Youngest Scientist Award by the Madhya Pradesh Council of Science and Technology.
The Shuddham machine has even been installed in MIT college hostels and it recycles around 500 litres of water every day, which helps them save 60,000 litres of water. The recycled water is used for bathing, gardening and all other purposes, except for drinking and cooking. Before installing the machine, the clean water samples were tested at different labs and many modifications were made to gain the best result.
While the machine costs around 7,000 rupees, its maintenance cost includes changing the granules, which does not cost more than 540 rupees. Every six months or once they reach a target of 90,000 litres, the granules have to be changed. There are four granules which weigh around 160 kg.
“Since the machine has been filed under the Copyright Act, we take complete responsibility to provide the granules to those who install this machine,” Jitendra said in an interview with Edexlive.
After word about Jitendra’s invention got out, many organisations including educational institutions, hotels and hospitals in Madhya Pradesh have come forward to install this machine. However, he and MIT have not agreed to jump into this manufacturing and sales venture without a financial backup and huge investments.
The Better India reports that Jitendra is also working as a research scientist for his alma mater, MIT Ujjain, where he innovates machines for community solutions. The institute funds his work.
He ran a pilot of Shuddham in the premises of the institute by installing four machines in the hostels. The results have been positive. He is now working on dropping the costs even further to make the innovation even more affordable for the drought-hit villages in his own state and surrounding areas.
Once the patent is approved, the machine will be commercialised and put out for sale in the market.
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