Water Out Of Air! Here's How This Bengaluru-Based Startup Is Tackling Water Crisis, Generating Renewable Water

Founded by Pardeep Garg, Swapnil Shrivastav, Venkatesh R, and Govinda Balaji, Uravu Labs is an ambitious project that has been resolving the age-long concern of the water crisis through groundbreaking technology. It was an idea that dawned upon Swapnil and Venkatesh long back when they were students at the National Institute of Technology.

Living in a hostel, there were days when they were permitted one bucket of water per day because the region was hit with a severe drought. This is an issue that many parts of India continue to face, and realising that there's more to it than what is seen, the friends decided to do something about it.

In Swapnil's own words, "Every crisis brings in a lot of opportunities with it and unseeing those opportunities is always a choice". Joining along with experts in the science and tech field to build a clean-tech renewable water system, they found an abundantly available and inexhaustible source to extract water - the air around us.

The Herculean Water Crisis

The amount of water many countries extract exceeds the annual renewable surface water reserve, and this has catalysed the water shortage. Among them, India continues to be one of the highly water-stressed countries, and Bangalore has been marked in the top 10 cities globally that are nearing the 'Day Zero' Threat.

Experts have also noted that more than half of the nation has no access to safe consumable water. This situation gets even worse in remote areas where groundwater supplies about 85 per cent of their drinking water. With these resources depleting at an enormous scale, it is catalysed further with major beverage chains exploiting these primary groundwater resources. Having taken away the primary source of water for many of these people, the rural inhabitants have to walk miles to access water, which may not even be clean for consumption.

Swapnil and Venkatesh were able to understand this water crisis from a ground level by travelling to many such rural regions of Gujarat and Rajasthan. They had also come to understand that many major metropolitan regions exceed 100 per cent extraction of their renewable water reserve, with Delhi at 120 per cent to Punjab having utilised a whopping 166 per cent.

To combat this scarcity, Uravu Labs created a tech that produces sustainable drinking water from the air. While this is an idea that had entered the market ages back, what Uravu does differently is that the water they are producing is entirely out of clean, renewable sources. The conventional method that is available in global markets is such that they use a significant amount of electricity to produce water, building limitations upon its scalability as well as its renewable concept.

Resolving both these concerns, Uravu built a tech-inspired by our everyday surroundings.

A Technology Reflecting Our Everyday

One noticeable feature of their clean-tech is that the founders found a sustainable solution through a simplified understanding of objects we see in our day-to-day life. Starting from the air conditioner to the silica gel packets that we find in new packages that we receive, their desiccant-based tech interestingly incorporates many such different elements.

The simple silica gel acts as an absorbent that absorbs moisture from the air and helps extract the same. Scaling it up further, the company also began incorporating liquid desiccants such as calcium chloride and lithium chloride solutions that can undergo an infinite number of extraction cycles. In terms of the air around us, the amount of water in the air is equivalent to six times of all the rivers combined together. Even more is the fact that the air replenishes naturally in around eight to ten days, unlike groundwater which takes years to replenish.

The project also ensured that the extraction is powered by renewable sources and utilised yet another abundantly available resource - solar heat and industry-based waste heat. Harnessing the unlimited energy provided by these sources, the company envisions that it can scale up to millions of litres within a day just out of air.

Indirectly Resolving The Long-Existing Rural Water Crisis

Uravu Labs, in its pilot stage, targeted the beverage industry in India. This is one of the industries that require huge amounts of water and electricity to make its products. Looking at even Cold drinks and beer, they are more than 90 per cent water. Their annual consumption extends to more than 1500 billion litres of water annually. Beverage giants such as Coca-Cola alone consume more than ten lakh litres of water per day.

The water that most of these industries utilise is derived from exploiting the groundwater levels. By providing them with an alternative renewable water source, they have been able to curb the dependency of industries on limited rural resources and create a domino impact.

Within the short span of time, Uravu has collaborated with brands such as AB InBev, Moonshine Meadery, Coca-Cola, Radico Khaitan, Kirin Holdings and Suntory switch to extract water from the air and create a net zero carbon footprint. In the initial stage, they delivered a five litres per day model and gradually hope to scale up to 2000 litre per day by the end of 2023.

They also intend to move to different spaces beyond beverage industries and expand their tech to reach corporate offices to rooftops of every house. This would then further go to water-stressed regions to directly improve resilience. Such is the roadmap charted down by the Uravu Labs for a water-secure nation, and it seems like a dream not so far from reach as they receive support and seed funding from companies on the national and international levels.

Investing In A Hopeful Tomorrow

The founders believe that the landscape for a climate tech revolution is changing for the positive and has been attracting a larger conscious crowd. Many commercial sectors and industries have already been making the sustainable switch and adopting clean-tech. Furthermore is the support that is actively extended by several central and state governments within India itself.

The Indian government has already spent a good portion of funds on resolving the ongoing water crisis in the country, and as a part of the same, they have adopted multiple missions such as the Jal Jeevan mission 2019 to the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) in 2021.

Also Read: Road To Sustainability! IIT Mandi Develops Method To Convert Plastic To Hydrogen