Portable Solar-Powered Smart System for Reverse Osmosis Process of Drinkable Rainwater

Abstract

The scarcity of good quality drinking water is one of the major global crises, especially in rural and underdeveloped regions. Those communities' primary drinking water sources are mainly surface collected water such as Pondwater, Tube well water, or rainwater. Therefore, rural living or sustained living poses severe challenges to producing drinking water from these unsafe sources. An innovative and economical water filtration system is essential to solve this crisis. A reverse osmosis system is one of the most convenient systems for water purification. However, it requires a high-pressure and power pump to complete the process. A portable solar energy-based low-cost smart rainwater purification system was developed in the SMART center. The system was developed by using a Low-Pressure Transfer (LPT), a chamber for low-power Reverse Osmosis (RO) pump with a smart microcontroller-based system that assures low-pressure energy transfer. The system prototype required only 50 Wh of electricity and successfully purified 10 gallons/hr and 20 gallons in a day. The total cost was around $200.00 only.