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| If you do not know ‘obsession with water’
has positive effects, check this out: Efforts
to desalinate water have emerged successful
at a research unit in Thoothukudi Thermal
Power Station (TTPS) on Monday. The man behind this new technology is A E Muthunayagam, former secretary, Department of Ocean Development, Government of India. Muthunayagam, who describes himself as ‘‘a man obsessed with water’’, says: ‘‘We’ve made a new beginning with this new technology which will benefit our society.’’ He preferred to term the new technology as ‘‘Low Pressure Distillation for Desalination (LPDD).’’ As per the new technology, sea water from upper strata will be injected into a vapouriser at low pressure to carry out vapourisation. This vapour will be condensed and maintained at low pressure using cold water from the lower strata of the ocean. Without pumps, barometric seals enable to discharge the remaining water from the vapouriser and fresh water from the condenser _ both maintained at a low-pressure environment. Says Muthunayagam, ‘‘The new system has several merits _ it scores over other systems in maintenance, operation, environmental impact and also cost _ though it is yet to be worked out in detail.’’ Muthunayagam has served the Department of Space Technology (ISRO, Thiruvananthapuram) for 29 years and is currently the V-C of Karunya Deemed University Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore. R Manickavelu, former head of Quality Assurance, LPSC-ISRO, says that the experimental plant commissioned on Monday met all the design specifications and that the quality of the fresh water tested in TTPS laboratory was found suitable for its use. The research unit has a nominal production capacity of 100 litres of fresh water per hour (2,400 litres a day). ‘‘The result of the initial experiments indicates an excellent performance of the plant and gives confidence for establishing high-capacity desalination plants in thermal power stations. Further experiments will be carried out in the coming months to generate design, data, performance evaluation and demonstration to prove the reliability of the plant,’’ adds Muthunayagam. Discussions for setting up this experimental unit at TTPS had begun a year ago when Muthunayagam approached the TNEB. The Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, had then sanctioned Rs 22.8 lakh for the project. The unit was set up by Muthunayagam’s own company AEM Ocean Technologies and Services Private Limited and Koushic Pressure Vessels Private Limited, which had done the fabrication for the unit. Muthunayagam further says that the TTPS requires 400 tonnes of fresh water for boiler feed and for some other operations per day per unit - a total of 2,000 tonnes for five units. ‘‘The water I supply needs some final processing which the TTPS officials say is simple,’’ he notes, adding he may put up a pilot plant at the TTPS with a capacity of 100 tonnes of fresh water a day. (Thanks to dinamalar.com) Usage: 1) 4 million liter of water used by Tuticorin Thermal power plant from river tamiraparani can be reduced 2) 250 times purer than the tamiraparani river water.By adding required minerals, can be used for drinking purpose 3) can be used for industries by adding some additives 4)Thermal power plants releases the used water into the sea at 10 deg. C .Using this technology, that can be avoided thus species doesn't get affected |
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