Several years later, in 2019, that idea led him, Govinda Balaji and Venkatesh Raja to set up Uravu Labs, a Bangalore-based startup.
Their system converts air to water using atmospheric water generators that contain a liquid desiccant, which absorbs moisture from the air.
Using sunlight or renewable electricity they heat the desiccant to 65C which releases the moisture, which can then be condensed into drinking water.
Mr Shrivastav says the whole process takes about 12 hours. Today each unit produces about 2,000 litres of drinking water.
However, while his vision was to supply drinking water to communities facing water shortages, he says it wasn’t financially viable.
“We realised the tech still needs more time to scale up and come down in cost,” says Mr Shrivastav. “Or someone should fund it, but we haven’t found the support in India.”
Instead, they currently sell the water to 40 clients in the hospitality industry, who in turn use it to provide drinking water for customers.
“We tried non-profit and CSR departments [corporate social responsibility]… but many companies shy away from tech. They thought it wouldn’t work. We had to shift to commercial consumption applications as they were ready to pay us and it’s a sustainability driver for them.”
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