Fluoride / Arsenic removal natural purifier

Source of data:

In India: Arsenic and fluoride in drinking water affecting millions in India

World wide : Problem of arsenic and fluoride in drinking water worldwide

Around 300 million plus people are affected, unfortunately in the low income areas across the world, mainly in India, where almost 70% of the states are affected with these 2 problems, which are not remediated all these days.

We have 2 variants as add-on with our existing Natural Water Purifier.

For arsenic removal:

The basic filter media made of clay compressed to form nano-pores, filter all contaminants like turbidity, odour, fowl taste, heavy metals, colour, pathogens etc. The water thus filtered is free from iron, after which arsenic can be detected. This arsenic is filtered through a passive cartridge which contains arsenic removing adsorbent made and patented by IIT Madras, there by making the water arsenic free.

See details of arsenic removal cartridges

For Fluoride removal:

The fluoride ridden water is first soaked into the 20 litre container which comprises of nano-coating doped calcium stones packed into 12 6" tall perforated cartridges, which are tied into polymeric meshes, not to allow the stones to spill out, but the water to pass through and remove the fluoride. The soaking time is approximately 8 to 12 hours, after which we can see the level of fluoride going down lesser than the permissible limits as per standards (1.5 ppm) after which the water is poured into our conventional water purifier to remove the other contaminants and make the water potable.

See details of fluoride removal system

In India, the water problems are myriad and region specific illness and fatal diseases due to serious pollution caused due to arsenic and fluoride are on the high, and not many water companies have come with region specific water solutions, which we brought into practice and market. See the report which shows a serious concern of alleviating fluoride, arsenic in India.

The founder, Chandrasekaran, is a designer, cum manufacturing professional having 33 years of experience in designing, prototyping and manufacturing. he has background of chemistry in graduation and PG in plastics, testing and quality control. Since inception of the company, due to his constant search on research papers and publications, we have been able to come out with region specific variants of arsenic removal, fluoride removal and now we are also launching excess pesticide removal systems. And our network to test water in ground level, in last mile through the NGOs we know, we have almost site reports of 20K plus, which we are mapping, then remediating the water. The design is done in such a way, that the lids, rings can be separated away, the containers, can be stacked together enabling us send them with lesser occupancy of space, thus lesser cost for logistics. The user can assemble themselves the products which are shown through YouTube videos. We have made it more user friendly, so that no AMC or maintenance follow up is needed. Lots of public in rural villages are saved from dreadful diseases like kidney failure, cancer, diarrheal death and fluorosis, because of our tailor made solutions we offer.

We are looking at more visibility to reach out to more needy countries who have similar problems of contaminated water, which they could not remediate, or are forced to use costly alternatives, and climate damaging systems like R.O plants. Our solutions are most affordable, long lasting and easy to use DIY models which we wanted to propagate to as many as possible, reaching out to the last woman and child in the last mile. Plus, we are also looking for impact investors who can invest on us to take the products globally. We also are keen on collaborating with scientists who have good water remediation solutions rested in their labs, but who wanted to scale or make their idea into a reality.

There is no non-energy based arsenic removal so far scaled and marketed which can reach the common man. Similarly, method of using alum for removal of fluoride is observed by many users across the globe, but the water is left with a heavy pungent smell, making it even though fluoride reduced, but not tasty to drink, by the beneficiary.

Whereas, Watsan brought in Nano-technology based adsorbents which could remove arsenic, another soaking bed method for removal of fluoride by doping a nano-coating on calcium stone, so that fluoride is removed on one side and nano-doses of calcium will get into the user's body building strength to already depleted teeth and bones, stopping fluorosis. These two products had good reception in the rural areas where water is too bad to drink and big NGOs like water Aid, World Vision, Water.org have adapted to our system and are distributing across India in those affected regions to mitigate excess arsenic and fluoride. 

We have already built good network with last mile NGOs in rural areas, and are distributing the purifiers through them. Any case of fluoride or arsenic comes to our notice and we immediately try to reach out to the people through which we have been able to reach out to almost 4,00,000 rural households across India. Coming months we are planning to have one state representative, almost 30 states in India, thereby creating better reach out and addressing region specific water problems through networking with the last mile NGOs and Women Self Help Groups.

We are reaching out to people meeting SDG-6 goals. We have tracked all sales done be it to individuals or to big NGOs and also monitor the long use of our filters without need to change the filter media, which is a siliceous clay candle, having nano-pores. At the outset, we were not knowing the climate change benefits and intangible SDGs we are covering through these supplies, but later we knew that by empowering the BPL families, employing 97% women from these communities in our factory s well as in our assembly shop, not owning a factory but bailing out a farmer in distress by taking his abandoned old rice factory on rent for the past one decade, and paying him a decent monthly rent, selling through NGO network, giving them the margin as donation, rather than through traders who would sell for higher margins, were all contributing to covering benefits of SDGs 3,5,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14, 15 and 17!!! Also we were winner of the national and regional 9Asian) finals of Climate Launch Pad and were finalists for the Global Climate Launch Pad finals in 2021, wherein we calculated the stopping of carbon emissions by deploying our natural purifiers across India. 

25,00,000 tonnes by non-electric purification, 1,00,00,00,000 tonnes saved by stopping burning of firewood to boil water, plus no PFAs or polymer membranes were used, hence no discarding any land fill post-filtration, unlike R.O plants. The above calculations were done by using 

https://www.carbonfootprint.co...

The theory of change: USP means not unique selling point, but Understanding the Solving the Problem!

We have the complete map of where arsenic, fluoride hit water are being drunk by rural villagers, and we already have a network of about 120 NGOs across the country. We are planning to train them on testing the water using hand held kits, and immediately remediate the water with our tailor-made purifiers.

Example of us training rural people in testing water with hand held kits:

https://www.smartvillagemoveme...

Once we train the people in the last mile with technology in hand, we can map, record and report to any government officials highlighting the anomaly in water, then remediate by making tailor made purifiers, small or big addressing the region specific contamination.

Our filter media is nano-pored siliceous material, a mix of clay and sand. To avoid ripping of river sand, we have successfully used manufactured sand or m-sand made from stone rubbles and the results are good. The pores are smaller enough not to allow the impediments like pathogens, colour, odour, heavy metals, turbidity etc to pass through except allow water to percolate. The water collected at the bottom vessel is potable. Apart from that we have developed Water dispensing machines, and have fitted on to an e-vehicle, the pilot was not launched owing to the pandemic, but we are launching them in some dry areas where water scarcity is to the fore during peak summer seasons where women walk miles to just fetch water. Rather our dispensing purifiers called as WoW (Water on Wheels) will be sourcing water from water bodies, convert into potable safe water enroute reaching the door step of the women and dispense water, avoiding women walking miles to just fetch water. 3 machines are ready and we will launch it in May 2023.

1. - Our workforce 97% are women from BPL families, who are almost first generation factory workers. Most of them had financial difficulties, where husbands don't fend them or the children. Today starting from 5 to reach to 30 members our team has grown as a family supporting each other, many of those who were unmarried, settled and got married, those who had kids have now sent them to colleges, some got their sons/ daughter married for which the company supported them financially. We never had any attritions, as from beginning we worked in unison.
2. Our factory was an abandoned old rice mill, wherein large power mills came into the market and made marginal farmers stop their rice polishing businesses. We took the place on rent from the farmer, operating since then, paying him a regular decent rent, so that he can sustain financially, rearing his other farmlands well. Also, the workers he had were adapted and were trained on nano-clay candle manufacturing, the old pounding, milling machines were re-engineered to suit our pounding and grinding etc. 
3. As far as distribution is concerned, we took a new route by collaborating with small and big NGOs alike who made us reach larger last mile population.
4. The NGOs got the margin as their donation, rather than we approaching the traders and dealers who might exploit the rural poor by selling the purifiers which has become an essential commodity for their lives.
5. Beyond that we have started training women on testing water at site, and deciding what to be eliminated to make the water potable and are delivering them customised purifiers.

1. Networking with big, small NGOs who buy regularly.
2. Direct sales on-line from our web site
3. Distribution through India Post for individuals and through Indian railways if in bulk, so as to reach all the last mile customers. 
4. Community sizes, bigger volumes through CSR (Corporate Social responsibility) of big MNCs.
5. Reaching out to Govt agencies to distribute through Government tenders and distribution.

Sale of small filters in volumes to large NGOs make us sustain.

To grow, we keep coming with new innovations and products, such as 

• Arsenic removal, fluoride removal, larger sized community models of 200 and 2500 litres, 
• automation of the same using IoT and digitization, making it work 365x24x7, 
• then we introduced Stainless Steel bodies, instead of plastics for those who can afford to buy at higher prices, but were sceptical on plastics. (But the fact is these are food grade plastics, moulded in the Government's own Plastics Institute and certified)
• Now working on small traveller's model and then
• Complete earthen made purifier for those who want Organic products, rather no plastics or metal...

So innovations keeps us afloat and gets us grants, awards, which we replough into the R&D of making newer models.

We have received grants worth 87937 US $ in the past and have been able to have a steady business by selling volumes of purifiers to larger NGOs like

World Vision

Water Aid

Water.org

Habitat for Humanity

Agha Khan Foundation etc. are our institutional buyers who buy in bulk.

Apart from that we have 2 regional representatives in Delhi and Mumbai, who get us CSR funding customers and companies who buy larger sizes for their use.

This year we are planning to have atleast one representative per state in India, to reach out to more people and create visibility to the customers.

We have never given credits to anybody, but have given good discounts to immediate buyers, smaller rural entrepreneurs, encouraging them to buy and sell, which also pushed our market ahead.

Even though we are bootstrapped, we are profitable since inception and have a runway of 1 year fund available with us to sustain.

During the 2 full year of pandemic, we were able to pay salaries to all staff and workers, even though the operations were thin, but were sending purifiers for flood alleviations like that happened in Chennai, Kerala, Orissa, Hyderabad etc, which was supported in a big way by World Bank for Kerala flood alleviation.