Hyquator’s Solar Cells Could Give Clean Water to Billions

Looks like a flat thermometer, but its inventors say it can disinfect 100 glasses of water on a single battery charge.

As many as a billion people on this planet do not have easy access to clean drinking water, especially in Third World countries in Africa and southern Asia. We have previously written about solutions to provide safe drinking water, including such methods as heating water via the sun in plastic beverage bottles. Another method to provide clean water is the use of special water filters that use bacteria to eat nitrates; while yet another is to use car and building air conditioning units to take water vapor from the air and turn it into clean drinking water. But now, a new device is being promoted by the Kickstarter Project Funding Platform that involves a small, solar energy powered device that its innovators say can disinfect dirty water by killing or inactivating all kinds of pathogenic microorganisms within minutes and prevent their further growth.

Called the Hyquator, the device is small enough to be carried in one’s pocket and uses solar cells to recharge its small battery. The Hyquator is said to be able to provide up to 100 glasses of drinking on one battery charge.

Its developers also say that the device can sanitize even water with high levels of suspended particles, such as water from areas affected by flooding, or muddy waters from lakes and rivers.

Here is a    Youtube link that hows how the Hyquator device works.

The Hyquator device has still not been put in actual production as its inventors have enlisted Kickstarter to recruit enough funds from donors in order to produce the device and offer it at an affordable cost; especially in countries where it is needed the most.

The Kickstarter promotional site says that a total of $60,000 needs to be raised by Monday, March 26, in order to have enough funding to allow production of the device. Bearing this in mind, and due to no technical information on the device being made available, we all might wonder if this entire project is just a lot of hype and a way of raising funds for something that may not actually even work.

Taking this into account, it might be advisable to only consider giving any funds toward the Hyquater’s production after the device has been inspected and thoroughly tested by a reliable testing institute. If it actually does work as claimed, then it  may be worth considering as another option to use for providing fresh drinking water “anytime and anywhere.”

Photo via kickstarter

Read more on methods for producing clean drinking water:

Time to Drink Water From Air Con Units
Water Filter Uses Bacteria Beads to Eat Nitrates
The SODIS Makes Light and Water of Plastic Bottles