Eliodomestico: Solar Terracotta Water Filter Distills 5 Liters of Water a Day

by Bridgette Meinhold, 10/25/11

filed under: humanitarian design, Water Issues

Eliodomestico is a solar-powered water filter that can be made from simple and readily available materials and is capable of purifying 5 liters of water each day. Developed by Italian designer Gabriele Diamanti, the water filter is essentially a solar still that boils water and separates it from other elements and delivers clean and pure drinking water. Made from terracotta, anodized zinc, and recycled plastic, Eliodomestico operates without filters or electricity, and requires minimal maintenance. The open source design was recently named as one of 12 finalists in the Prix Émile Hermès 2011 competition.

Solar Water Filter, Gabriele Diamanti, eliodomestico, solar powered water filter, solar still, terracotta water filter

Diamanti’s solar powered water filter is designed to provide drinking water for families in developing countries. Eliodomestico is a solar still that operates a bit like an upside-down coffee maker. At the beginning of the day, water is poured into the terracotta chamber. As the day begins the still heats up and eventually gets hot enough to boil the water, creating steam. The steam forced into the expansion nozzle at the top and then condenses against the lid, where it then drips down into the catch basin below. At the end of the day, assuming it was hot enough outside, there will be 5 liters of fresh drinking water available.

The solar-powered filter can function without fuel, electricity, filters, and it requires no maintenance. These devices can also be built anywhere from readily available materials – anyone who can throw a pot can handcraft the main elements necessary for the water filter. Diamanti estimates that a normal solar still costs around $100 dollars and only produces about 3 liters a day, while his Eliodomestico could be made for $50 and produce 5 liters. The design is available as an open-source project for anyone who wants to make one and is licensed under a CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

+ Gabriele Diamanti

Via Designboom

4 Comments

Masonjar April 21, 2013 at 5:49 am

Where does one find the blue prints as to how to make?
Thank you
apurva99 October 8, 2012 at 3:53 am

hey dis project is d best 1, i liked it.. can u mail me more details about this topic on my email id, i want learn more about it.. thanks..
Brokenseal September 11, 2012 at 12:08 am

I would love to buy the Eliodomestico to show my friends as we live 35mile off the coast of Texas and we have have had a few Hurricanes.I dont like being without water found this out the hard way during Ike.
mitra December 11, 2011 at 9:52 pm

Nice idea, but lets do the numbers.

So $50 cost of production, means $200 to the end consumer. A typical developing country family uses 15 liters of drinking water per day. (3 liters * 5 people). So they need three of these – total cost $600.

This is at least an order of magnitude too expensive to solve the problem.

Mitra
http://www.naturalinnovation.org