1. LOWER-WATER WASHING MACHINE
A washing machine uses a lot of water, so Sheffield-based company Xeros has developed a device that uses 80 per cent less. It has replaced the liquid stuff with polymer beads. Each machine could potentially save more than a million litres of water over its lifetime. This is equivalent to the same volume used by an average UK household in a decade. A large commercial machine uses a staggering 500 litres of water every time it’s switched on. The patented, award-winning system also uses up to 50 per cent less energy and roughly 50 per cent less detergent than traditional systems. It’s a great British success story that’s expanded into North America and China.
2. PORTABLE WATER TREATMENT
Swedish organisation Solvatten has developed a portable water treatment and heater system that gives access not just to safe drinking water, but also to hot water. It’s designed to be used by off-grid households in the developing world. Roughly 250,000 people are using this system in tropical regions. Each unit contains two, five-litre containers, a fabric filter and a heating unit. Natural ultra-violet light from the sun destroys harmful micro-organisms in the water, which is also heated to 75C. Each unit costs up to $100, but will last a decade.
3. BIOMIMETICS
Polluted tap water is a big issue in many countries, especially in India and China, and purifying it takes lots of energy or chemicals. Danish company Aquaporin has developed a groundbreaking technology that purifies water by mimicking nature. The company has developed a membrane that’s embedded with a protein found in all cells from bacteria to humans, called aquaporins. These allow living things to filter out pollutants and get clean water into cells. The manufactured membrane relies on forward osmosis and uses a lot less energy than current technologies. In total, 62 patents have been granted worldwide. It can be used to treat wastewater and is very efficient – one gramme of aquaporins can cope with 2,700 litres of water a second.
4. TURNING WAVES INTO FRESHWATER
Existing desalination plants devour huge amounts of energy and belch out concentrated brine into oceans, jeopardising marine ecosystems. A new device could create drinking water from the sea using wave power. The SAROS desalination buoy is the brainchild of two graduates from the US University of North Carolina. Their device pressurises water and performs reverse osmosis to purify brine. It currently produces 500 gallons a day. They’re now scaling up to produce 5,000 gallons per buoy in waves that are only 2.5 feet high. A US demonstration project will be in place by early-2017 with pilot projects in Puerto Rico and Nicaragua towards the middle of next year. It could one day provide clean drinking water for remote islands.
5. PERSONAL PURIFICATION STRAW
LifeStraw is a plastic cigar-like straw that isn’t for sucking up fizzy pop, but removing potential pathogens, such as dysentery, typhoid and cholera, as well as other parasites from what would normally be undrinkable water. The portable filter uses a hollow-fibre micro-filtration technology. Up to 1,000 litres of water can be made fit to drink without electricity or additional attachments. It is available on the consumer market, via Danish healthcare company Vestergaard, for trekkers and outdoor pursuit enthusiasts. For every LifeStraw purchased, one schoolchild in a developing country receives safe drinking water for an entire school year. It is used in projects in more than 64 countries around the world from Kenya to India.
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