Spectraboil

About one third of the world’s population (~two billion people) does not have access to electricity, and about the same population lacks clean drinking water. Diarrhea, cholera, hepatitis, and other diseases caused by contaminated water kill roughly five million people a year in the under developed nations. Lives of about 60 million children are jeopardized because of recurring diarrhea and other illnesses.

Existing water purification systems based on ultraviolet (UV) radiation are usually electrically operated and sourced by mercury vapor lamps. The lamps have limitations, especially in rural settings, such as availability of electricity, cost, portability, and hazardous contamination with mercury. Replacing the mercury vapor lamps with solid-state light emitting diodes (LEDs) as the source of UV light can potentially reduce the cost, and eliminate the environmental impacts. The LEDs can be powered by photovoltaic (PV) cells designed to capture and convert solar spectrum to electricity to power the LEDs.

In our proposed SolarJugs™, a sheet of solar cell will comprise the outer surface while a sheet of UV emitting microLEDs made of gallium nitride will be integrated inside of the container. Both the solar cells and microLEDs can be printed on flexible substrates using printable large area flexible electronics pioneered at the University of Illinois by Prof. J. Rogers. These flexible sheets of solar cells and microLEDs will enable simple integration of the two into a jug shaped (or any other convenient shaped) module that does not require any electric supply. The running cost of this module is essentially free. The materials are durable, biologically compatible, and harmless to the environment. SolarJug™ is a true environment friendly, cost effective, water purification module.
Millions of rural customers in India, Southeast Asia, and Africa are the potential population to be using the SolarJug™. With some design modifications, the SolarJugs™ can be used by soldiers deployed in areas where clean water is not easily accessible.

Large area flexible electronics based design and manufacturing techniques pioneered at the University of Illinois will be employed to realize the ultimate product. Partial prototypes are demonstrated in laboratory.