Gili Genting is an island located at Sumenep, East Java Province, on the island, there is a lack of clean water supply which causes locals (especially fathers) to dehydrate so their other family members can drink. Right now, that supply consists of buying clean water abroad, which is insufficient. Another problem was the lack of preserves (salt) to preserve the fishermen’s catch. Based on these problems, together with Karya Bahari, this team from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember aims to propose a renewable energy-based multifunction system that will convert seawater into drinkable water and salt.
The proposed project is a smart PV-powered modified RO (reverse osmosis) machine that can convert seawater into drinkable water and salt. While the conventional RO machine releases a residue in the form of water with a high concentration of salt, our modified RO machine converts that residue into salt. This is done by connecting the RO machine’s residue output to a solar still box with a heater installed inside. In the box, an accelerated evaporation process will separate all the water and salt.
EPICS in IEEE (Fischer-Mertel Community of Projects) granted this team $7,500.00 to complete this project and deploy a prototype in the community.