Saving lives and plastic – a Tripura professor’s clever innovation is bringing safe drinking water to those stranded by disaster. The portable “suitcase water purifier” converts turbid flood water into mineral-rich drinking water.
It’s not every day an engineering professor becomes a knight in shining armour. But when Harjeet Nath walked into a school-turned-relief camp for those displaced by the August 2024 Tripura floods, thirsty residents rushed around him.
Though the Kalipara school was surrounded by floodwater, safe drinking water was hard to come by. So the professor at the Department of Chemical and Polymer Engineering at Tripura University offered his new innovation – a suitcase-sized portable water purifier.
As the motor of his machine revved up, scores of displaced residents made a beeline to collect water pouring from a tap connected to a pipe collecting turbid stormwater, which is pushed through through several purifiers depending on the requirement.
“For pregnant women and children, we make sure to run the water through advanced purifying techniques that would ensure the water is clean as well as has added minerals. For water to be used to do chores or cleaning, it is just filtered through one purifier,” said Nath.
Floods of such intensity had never hit the state of Tripura in living memory before August 2024. The entire state was called a “natural calamity-affected area” by the government. 32 people were killed and, according to the state government’s estimate, the overall damages amounted to Rs 15,000 crore.
In just two days, Nath supplied 5000 litres of purified water using his contraption at the relief camp in Gomati, one of the state’s worst affected districts. There was a pleasant knock-on-effect too.
Also Read: Tribal women ensure safe drinking water for their village
“Delivering this quantity of water in two days enabled us also to save 100 kilos of plastic. That’s assuming one litre of packaged drinking water is transported in 20 grams of plastic,” he said.
In fact, reducing the world’s plastic footprint was the inspiration for this handy purifier. “Since 2019, when we invented the first portable suitcase water purifier, our main aim has been to decrease plastic pollution,” said Nath.
Nath has aided with drinking water in relief camps at Agartala and Udaipur in the state. He purified between 1000 and 1500 liters of water a day in camps outside Udaipur alone.
“The initiative was entirely his. We helped him with the logistics and the people overseeing the relief camp management. We aided him with the R&D to test the water purified by his machine,” said Sumitra Debnath, Senior Deputy Collector, Gomati district.
The suitcase water purifier has four machines: two solar and two that run on electricity. The contraption comes with portable sensors that check the water’s pH levels and turbidity. A TDS (total dissolved solids) meter checks the content of solids in water.
“We don’t use the same machine for every kind of water. For instance, river water is different from floodwater, which has more microbes and unknown entities making it difficult to treat,” explained Nath.
Also Read: How bamboo farming is transforming lives in Tripura
The machine takes water pumped in through a generator which goes through a series of purifiers. The team treating the water carries equipment to test which kind of water needs what kind of treatment.
Nath makes sure to check the mineral content of the water, which he says is deficient in the RO water that people drink.
“If the mineral content (of the water) is sufficient, it doesn’t activate the mineral cartridge. This is the level of automation I have worked on for my machine” said Nath.
The suitcase purifier, in its first form, has a patent filed by Tripura University. The technology that Nath invented in 2019 has undergone modifications, due to which he has applied for four new intellectual property (IP) rights licenses.
Nath has submitted a proposal to the Chief Secretary of Tripura and the government of Assam to serve disaster-prone locations. “We’ve seen that people die to get water in disaster-prone areas. The government only distributes one or two water bottles per person. During our fieldwork, we found that we could satisfy the needs of as many as 300 people in a relief camp in an hour,” added Nath.
Before Tripura, he had been using his purifier to serve drinking water to people even during the devastating Silchar floods in 2022.
Nath believes that through his innovation he can put Tripura on the map for technology. “Half of the people in mainland India don’t know where Tripura is. What if I bring exposure to my state by promoting my technology? The state shouldn’t be known for its arts and crafts alone,” declared Nath.
His company, HN Technovations LLP, has signed an MoU with the African Policy Research Center, to supply clean water to areas where issues of drinking water are common. In the coming days, he plans to set up a manufacturing plant and employ people in developing technologies with a focus on serving the community.
“The placement of students from Tripura University into the workforce isn’t that good. If I can give employment to more, I can improve the otherwise low rank of my college,” said Nath, who clearly has big ambitions for his small water purifier.
Also Read: How a pungent delicacy is supporting Tripura’s indigenous community
The lead image on top depicts professor Harjeet Nath’s team with the portable suitcase water purifier in the flood-ravaged areas of Cachar, Assam. (Photo courtesy Herjeet Nath)
Aatreyee Dhar is an independent journalist based out of Assam.
