Need innovative, low-cost water filters: MIT, IIM-A research

Research also states that innovation in water filters for low-income users needed; reverse osmosis filters should also be developed

A joint research on household water filters in Ahmedabad by the Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation (CITE) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) along with Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has found a gap in affordable innovative water filters in households.

CITE teams studied over 100 models of household water filters from nine major brands available on the market in Ahmedabad, India and interviewed over 400 consumers, retailers, distributors and manufacturers. These models fell into three main categories: conventional particle filtration (cloth/jali mesh), gravity non-electric filters, and reverse osmosis filters.

In Ahmedabad, MIT students and researchers worked closely with students from local Indian universities to conduct the evaluation. Another student team spent the summer in the Consumer Reports labs in Yonkers, New York conducting lab tests of the same models being tested in the field.

 

Among the three categories, the research found that cloth and jali filters are cheap and common among low-income users, but are not effective in reducing E.coli, or turbidity. 

"Gravity non-electric filters are moderately priced and far more effective than cloth filters at reducing E.coli and turbidity. Reverse osmosis is a popular type of water filter 

system perceived as the best, but most of these systems are not an affordable option for the poor. Moreover, these filters generate wastewater at rates triples that of the clean water they produce-a negative environmental impact in a water scarce region," it observed.

Of the three categories, Reverse Osmosis Filters were found to remove more than 99.99 per cent E.coli. However, on the flipside, reverse osmosis systems "waste 74 liters of water for every 26 liters they clean. This makes them unsustainable in water scarce regions like Ahmedabad and India more broadly," the research found.

Conducted in 2014, findings of the research have now been made available and state that there is a “need for water quality monitoring and education among the base of the pyramid.”

"There is also room for innovation in household water filter market to meet needs of low-income users. Also, more environment-friendly reverse osmosis filters need to be developed for individual households," the CITE research found.