Tapping water from thin air

Secunderabad: The next time you visit the Secunderabad Railway Station, you can savour a litre of water produced from thin air. Thanks to technology, a state-of-the-art 'Atmospheric Water Generator' kiosk was set up on platform No 1 here on Thursday. It has been developed by 'Maithri Aquatech' named as "MEGHDOOT".

The kiosk installed at Secunderabad station produces around 1, 000 litres per day. It is proposed to charge Rs 8 per litre along with bottle and Rs 5 per litre if passenger brings their own container. Coin Vending machine facility is also available wherein passengers can directly fill their water bottles by dropping Rs 5 coin. The storage tank is of food grade material (Stainless steel) and the freshness of water is maintained for several days. The machine produces very less noise and temperature and humidity levels are also displayed.

In this system, instead of taking source water for filtration and consumption, the water is directly harvested from the air through a series of steps. Under this, air flows into the machine through a filtration system duly filtering out the contaminants present in the moisture laden air. Then the filtered air passes through cooling chamber wherein the air will be condensed.

The condensed air is converted into water and drops into a storage tank provided for the purpose. The dropped water from the tank passes through multiple level filtration which removes odour and any other impurities and then it passes through ultra violet (UV) system. The filtered water is dosed with essential minerals which are beneficial before it can be dispensed for consumption.

The water produced under this system fulfils the norms of World Health Organisation (WHO)and also Indian standards for consumption.It is also approved by Ministry of Jal Shakti as a safe and healthy drinking water.