CM inaugurates the city’s first ‘water ATM’, 500 more to be set up

Subject :Science and Technology

Section: Msc

Concept :

The Delhi government has planned to install 500 water ATMs to provide drinking water treated using the Reverse Osmosis (RO) process to people in slums and other such densely populated areas, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Monday.

Water ATMs

Anytime Water Machines (ATM) is a water dispensation system which can be automatic with a coin or smart card, or manually.
Operated by private companies, water ATMs provide an alternative solution to the safe drinking water challenge.
Essentially water ATM is a community RO (Reverse Osmosis).
Installed at various public places such as railway stations, bus stands, places of worship and slums where the need for potable water is acute.

Osmosis and RO:

Osmosis involves ‘a solvent (such as water) naturally moving from an area of low solute concentration, through a membrane, to an area of high solute concentration.
A reverse osmosis system applies an external pressure to reverse the natural flow of solvent and so seawater or brackish water is pressurised against one surface of the membrane, causing salt-depleted water to move across the membrane, releasing clean water from the low-pressure side’.