Dip N Drink Membrane Pouch

Introduction

In case of water sources which have well defined contaminants, membrane based decontamination plants are commonly used to get potable water. But it is often difficult to get uncontaminated water for drinking standard at the remote locations during disaster conditions like floods, tsunami etc. In such cases, membranes in easy to use, portable configuration are most useful for water purification to get drinking water.

On this line, Desalination Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) has developed technology to make membrane pouches for getting sterile drinkable solution from contaminated water. A low molecular weight, water soluble, non-toxic substance having a high osmotic pressure like Oral Rehydration Salt (ORS) mixture, milk powder and/or any water soluble and drinkable substance which provides safe drinkable solution. Based on the Osmosis process only pure water permeates through the semi permeable membrane and dissolves the nutrient salts filled in the pouches. A 15cm×15cm size membrane pouch containing 5 gm of Oral Rehydration Salt (ORS) powder can produce 200ml sterile water solution in 3-3.5 hrs time.

Advantages :

• Produces complete sterile drinkable solution (free of all biological contamination).
• Easily portable devices that can be used in disaster management conditions like floods, Tsunami, earthquakes etc.
• It can be used in any contaminated water.

Applications :

• This technology provides safe, sterile drinkable solution from any biological contaminated water sources.
• It can be used for concentration of high value low volume product in food, pharmaceutical, chemical industries.

Process :

The technology of Membrane Pouch for Providing Sterile Drinkable solution from Contaminated Water involves following steps:

1. Preparation of membrane pouch using selected sheet membrane.
2. Use/Testing of pouches
3. Disposal of used pouches

Raw Materials :

All the raw materials are available in bulk in local market.

Infrastructure :

There is no specific infrastructure is needed. It requires a small laboratory with few common types of equipment like analytical balance, electric Sealing Machine, and common glasswares.

Manpower :

The manpower requirements depend on the capacity and the extent of automation. However, for manual making of about 100 numbers of membrane pouches per day, the manpower required is 1 skilled lab technician and 1 semi-skilled worker..