Public Funding for Thermofluidics LTD.

This project will address the need for an affordable and reliable off-grid water treatment solution from the household scale to communities of around 500 people. Approximately 2.1Bn people depend on water which is microbially contaminated at source (WHO/UNICEF), and post-source contamination affects many more \[Bainetal,2014\]. Associated diarrhoeal disease accounts for ~8% of deaths amongst under 5s (UNICEF/WHO, 2017). The recognised "first step" in improving water quality is to install robust and reliable pumps in capped wells and boreholes to limit contamination. To this end, Thermofluidics developed the "Impact Pump", with over £5M from Wellcome and others, enabling PV-electric, petrol or human power to access deep-groundwater. This was recently demonstrated in a joint Wellcome/Innovate-GCRF project with our Kenyan partner FundiFix to offer an increase in the average up-time of powered rural water services from ~75% to over 99%. Leveraging a network over 20 distributors and water service providers, we are actively rolling-out an export product worldwide. As Impact Pump sales grow, this project will enable us to retain and grow our R&D team, extending our portfolio with a game-changing water treatment capability. Groundwater is often unavailable, or contaminated. Universal access to safe water is hindered by the lack of an off-grid treatment solution that's economically viable without subsidy. Chlorination is by far the most common method of water sterilisation. It kills viruses (unlike microfiltration) and is insensitive to turbidity (unlike UV treatment). It's the only method that provides residual protection against contamination post-treatment. However, existing solutions are often unviable due to supply chain issues, skilled operator requirements and high operational and maintenance costs. Our approach will leverage cheap-PV to unlock this £2-£3Bn addressable export market opportunity, building on successful proof-of-concept experiments in a way that avoids the need for skilled-operators or free-chlorine chemicals on site. It will include chlorine production and dosing components, automatically treating water in proportion to the flow rate at which it is drawn at the tap. Our workplan allows for an initial release for productionisation and beta-trialling from month 14, and preparation for a full-launch from the end of the project. This is a re-submission, with additional detail to address reviewers' comments. Impacting substantially on SDGs 3,6&13 and opening a substantial new export opportunity to UK strategic partner countries, we believe that this project represents excellent value for the UK taxpayer.

This project will address the need for a resilient groundwater pump for drinking water-supply, targeting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3 & 6. The traditional approach to rural water provision in developing countries is to install handpumps in capped boreholes or hand-dug wells. Whilst handpumps have brought improved water to millions, they are labour intensive, maintenance intensive and suffer from under-developed supply chains of labour and parts. Often, they are not maintained and an estimated 1/4 of them don't work (Foster et al., 2019). Solar-powered submersibles are an increasingly popular alternative to handpumps [RWSN], but they fall short during cloudy conditions or due to failures caused by silt/grit, overheating and dry-running. Unlike submersibles, surface-pumps raise water by suction from ground level. They are cheaper, more efficient, longer lasting and easier to swap-out and maintain than submersibles, in which motors and sliding seals must be submerged. However, they are limited to drawing water from within ~7m depth, representing <10% of cases (BGS,2011). The "Impact Pump" is a novel "range extender" using acoustic phenomena to enable surface-pumps to access deep groundwater without fault-prone parts below ground. Related technologies have operated continuously for over a hundred years. Two years of field trials in smallholder irrigation have shown that failures are rare and constrained to the surface (drive)-pump, which can be swapped-out in under two minutes. Manual or fuel-driven drive-pumps can provide temporary backup. The Impact Pump is grit-tolerant, insensitive to water-level variations, and can run dry for extended periods without damage; self-priming when levels recover. In this project, we will investigate whether these attributes can be advantageous in rural water service delivery. We will explore a range of implementation options based around a template field design. These will address variations in the commercial, social, institutional and environmental context associated with different sites, with a common aim of ensuring continuity of supply in the events of cloud cover or pump failure. The feasibility phase will also assess partnerships required to run a demonstrator and local supply chains for equipment and expertise. Two "breadboard" installations will be established by Thermofluidics and FundiFix near Kitui, Kenya. The project will determine whether the maintenance benefits already demonstrated in agriculture, can translate to water supply. If successful, demonstrators will be rolled-out in phase 2, showing substantial capacity for impact on rural water security, business and maintenance models, and the costs underpinning it, across the globe.

Awaiting Public Project Summary