கடல்தண்ணீர் நல்ல தண்ணீர் ஒரு லிட்டர் 6 பைசா

கடல் தண்ணீரை நல்ல தண்ணீராக மாற்றி வினியோகம் செய்யும் சாகர் சக்தி இன்றுமுதல் சென்னைக்கு அருகே வேலை செய்ய ஆரம்பிக்கிறது.

இதன் மூலம் உற்பத்தி ஆகும் தண்ணீரின் விலை ஒரு லிட்டருக்கு ஆறு பைசா என்று அறிவித்திருக்கிறார்கள்.

வாழ்த்துவோம்.

கூகுள் செய்தித்தொகுப்பு

Drinking water at 6 paise a litre

Special Correspondent

Sibal lauds Chennai institute's system





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Total dissolved solid less than 10 ppm
Private sector tie-ups possible
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NEW DELHI: Pure drinking water at six paise a litre. This need not be a dream any more. The National Institute of Ocean Technology at Chennai has succeeded in putting together and operating a desalination system with a capacity of one million litres a day, which promises to make this a reality.

Announcing the development at a press conference here on Wednesday, Union Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, Kapil Sibal, said the quality of the water produced from the plant has been found to surpass even international standards. For instance, the level of total dissolved solid, which was a major parametre, was found to be less than 10 parts per million (ppm), as against the international standard of 500 ppm.

Describing it as a global first, he said though the system was based on the well known principle of flash evaporation, putting it together was an arduous task as the plant was mounted on a floating barge 40 km into the sea off the coast of Chennai. The technology involved was turning surface sea water into vapour in a vacuum chamber and then condensing the vapour using cold water drawn from the sea itself from a depth of 600 m.

The most complex part was the drawal of the cold water as it required a pipe with a diameter of one metre and made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Such pipes are manufactured for lengths of 12 metre. The project, therefore, required fusing together 500 of them.

Also, since the density of the pipe is almost equal to that of sea water, it floats in the water. While this was advantageous while taking it to the barge, the issue at stake was it had to be made to stand vertically from the barge to a depth of 600 m by attaching heavy weights. "Deployment and connection of the pipe was a very challenging task, especially with limited offshore facilities available in the country," he said.

The next difficulty the scientists encountered was in the storage and transport of the fresh water from the barge to the shore. For this, they have designed water bags of special material that could hold and carry two lakh litres per bag. The bags are then towed to the shore using small fishing boats.

Mr. Sibal said that having developed the one million litre capacity system successfully; his Ministry would now focus on up-scaling it to at least 10 million litre capacity systems with the help of the private sector.

Several private units have already shown interest for a tie-up. Discussions would be held with them soon. The prices would then come down further.

It was expected that the price of the fresh water could get halved to three paise a litre.