Each year it is estimated that 1.1 billion people lack access to an adequate supply of drinking water at the cost of 1.6 million lives annually. To help solve this global problem the Mechanical Engineering team of Gordon Marsh, Matthew Kurtz, and Christopher Fern designed and fabricated a semi-portable water purification system that operates using renewable energy sources.
The team got their inspiration while taking a thermodynamics engineering class at The College of New Jersey. The device is a simple distillation system which is able to remove the majority of contaminants, waterborne pathogens, and other undesirable and unhealthy elements that can be found in drinking water. It was determined that a wind and solar powered generator was best utilized for this system as it is the most common possible type of energy source found in even the most remote places on the planet. A 20 foot high wind turbine is all that would be required to generate the 600 watts of electricity needed to run the device. The system is currently capable of creating 1-2 liters of drinking water an hour, which is enough to supply the daily survival requirements of 6-12 people.
“What impressed me the most about the team was their ability to work together, meet project schedules, and their ability to communicate the results effectively,” says Dr. George Facas the team’s faculty advisor. It is hoped that a system like this can be refined for cheap mass production for easy distribution to those parts of the world that are in serious need of clean drinking water.
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