A Solar-Powered Way to Clean Polluted Rivers? These Students May Have Found It

Mechanical engineering students Eldho Sunny, Jerin Paul V Shajan, KR Jinu Raj and Amal Prasannan are the masterminds behind the floating machine that can be controlled from the bank of any water resource.

By Lekshmi Priya S

April 19, 2018

Most people and civic authorities cannot find a way to manage their garbage properly, so the easiest way out for them is to dump the waste into water bodies.

Despite being well educated and aware about the perils of pollution, it is unfathomable how people fail to understand that the more we pollute our rivers and ponds, the more dangerous it becomes for us to find safer water resources.

The toxic effluents and contaminants in the garbage seep through the soil over time and subsequently find their way to the groundwater table—which is what takes care of our day-to-day water needs.

Understanding this crisis, a team of engineering students from Muvattupuzha in Ernakulam district of Kerala, have come up with a novel innovation that can be put to use for cleaning polluted water bodies.

The innovators with their innovation. Source: Mathrubhumi.

Eldho Sunny, Jerin Paul V Shajan, KR Jinu Raj and Amal Prasannan, who are all students of the mechanical engineering department of the Cochin Institute of Science and Technology (CISAT), aim to control the burgeoning pollution that is slowly poisoning the water bodies of the state, and are the masterminds behind the floating machine that can be controlled from the bank of any water resource.

The contraption emulates the floatability of a boat and the functionality of an excavator, and its propellers function with the help of a motor. An attached arm and bucket section that will work on accumulating the waste in the water.

“The machine can clean plastic waste and aquatic weeds like ‘African payal’ or salvenia. It uses solar power, so there is no question of pollution,” said the students to Mathrubhumi, a local Malayalam daily.

Built on a budget of ₹1.5 lakh, the innovative machine was a part of their college project. The best part is that it can be direction-controlled by an operator positioned on the bank through an android phone, who can view where the waste is present in the water body with the help of the camera attached to the device.

The machine was successfully tested by the students on the banks of Muvattupuzha river on Tuesday, and they intend to get their unique innovation patented soon.

One of their primary concerns that paved the way for the engineering students to devise the machine had been related to health hazards arising from bathing in the trashed local water bodies, which now they hope would be resolved with their innovation. The students believe that the machine has the potential of bringing a major change in the cleaning of water resources.

We hope that their innovation finds greater visibility and soon civic bodies across the state utilise it to save the rivers and ponds before it is too late.

Featured Image Source: Pixabay.

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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