NIOT Develops Roshni

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The News

In a landmark innovation in the maritime ecosystem, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh launched India’s first Saline Water Lantern which uses the sea water to power itself.
The first-of-its kind lantern has been named ‘Roshni’ during a visit to SAGAR ANVESHIKA, a Coastal Research Vessel, operated and used by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai for coastal research.

Roshni works through ionisation. Electrical energy is produced when salt water electrolytes react with magnesium inside the device.

Saline Water Lantern will bring “Ease of Living” to the poor and needy, particularly the fishing community living along the 7500 Kilometres long coastal line of India.
1. Cost-effective
2. Easy to operate
3. Pollution free
4. Can replace Kerosene/Oil based lamps
Note: Price/Technology for masses/scalability/Life are still some issues that need to be resolved for mass production.

Union Minister also reviewed the progress of NIOT developed Low Temperature Thermal Desalination (LTTD) technology for conversion of sea water to potable water, which has been successfully demonstrated in Lakshadweep islands.
There are already three desalination plants based on the LTTD technology have been developed and demonstrated at Kavaratti, Agati and Minicoy Islands of Lakshadweep.
The capacity of each of these LTTD plants is 1 Lakh litre of potable water per day.
After the success of 3 desalination plants, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has entrusted the work of establishing 6 more LTTD plants at Amini, Androth, Chetlet, Kadmat, Kalpeni and Kiltan with a capacity of 1.5 lakhs litres/day.
The LTTD technology is found suitable for Lakshadweep islands where the required temperature difference of about 15⁰C between sea surface water and deep-sea water is found in the vicinity of Lakshadweep coasts.

Low-temperature thermal desalination (LTTD) is a desalination technique which takes advantage of the fact that water evaporates at lower temperatures at low pressures, even as low as ambient temperature.
LTTD system uses vacuum pumps to create a low pressure, low-temperature environment in which water evaporates even at a temperature gradient of 8 °C between two volumes of water.
Cooling water is then used from deep sea depths of as much as 600 metres to condense the evaporated water vapor.
The resulting condensate is purified water.