Start-Ups - WaterHealth International, Inc.

	"Unlike other ultraviolet-based water purifiers, UV Waterworks does not require pressurized water-delivery systems and electrical outlets," stated Ashok Gadgil, inventor of the device and scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division. It works either on its own or with a pump or prefilter.

UV Waterworks: Purifying Water and Saving Lives around the World

UV Waterworks uses ultraviolet light to quickly, safely, and cheaply disinfect water of the viruses and bacteria that cause cholera, typhoid, dysentery, and other deadly diseases. UV Waterworks can be powered by a car battery or a 60-watt solar cell, is about the size of a microwave oven, and weighs about 15 pounds. It can disinfect water at the rate of four gallons per minute, for about five cents for every thousand gallons.

This technology is being used in disaster relief around the world and to provide safe drinking water to rural and urban communities. In 1998, UV Waterworks was brought into the western Caribbean by disaster relief agencies after Hurricane Mitch left thousands without sanitary drinking water.

Berkeley Lab has exclusively licensed UV Waterworks to WaterHealth International, Inc. Through WaterHealth, the device is being installed all over the world. In 1998, it became part of the first integrated community water system in Zihuatenejo, Mexico, near Acapulco. The station provides water for approximately 2,000 people daily. And as of 2003, at least 200,000 people were being served daily by UV devices in urban and rural communities worldwide.

To learn more about this innovative water purification system, see http://eetd.lbl.gov/cbs/archive/uv/. For a more detailed story, click here.