AI and IoT in Water? How Internet Water Is Transforming the Commercial Water Purifier Industry

Clean, pure water is a foundational building block of life. Pure, clean, and safe drinking water isn’t available easily these days. Growing population, industrial development, and environmental degradation are all causes of this. Given this situation, it becomes even more important for us to be aware of purification techniques to ensure that our drinking water is of good quality. There are a variety of methods available to improve the purity of water. There are many different types of advanced commercial water purification technologies available. Commercial water purifiers range from simple water filters to advanced purifiers using membrane technology for water filtration followed by disinfection with UV light. A lot of minerals are found naturally in water and are important for the human body but consuming an excess amount can cause diseases over the long term. A good commercial water purifier is one that will remove excess salts, suspended particles, and microbes while retaining essential vitamins and minerals.

Evolution of Commercial Water Purification Techniques 

One of the earliest methods of commercial water purification was to simply filter and add chlorine to the water. Chlorine releases hydrochloric acid, which reacts with the microorganisms and kills them. However, this method is not capable of removing dissolved impurities and further, due to chlorine’s negative effect on health as well as its ineffectiveness to kill certain types of protozoa, this technique lost popularity paving the way for other purifying techniques like commercial RO and UV water purification.

TRADITIONAL COMMERCIAL RO WATER PURIFIER

The commercial reverse osmosis (RO) system offers a multi-stage filtration of water by combining active carbon and also particle filtration. Here, the tap water is made to pass through a membrane (a polymer film) that has very small-sized pores, and this filters out dissolved impurities and micro-organisms in water. The impurities collected are then flushed out through an outlet pipe. By reducing TDS levels, a RO commercial water purifier improves the taste of water but, it is difficult to ascertain the absolute purity of water due to the nature of the membrane which tends to get fouled and breed microorganisms causing pores to enlarge and allow dangerous microorganisms to pass through to the other side. Commercial RO filters are essentially recommended for places where the problem with the water is its high content of dissolved minerals which adversely affects the taste and makes it unsuitable for drinking or for food preparation purposes.

LIMITATIONS OF TRADITIONAL RO WATER PURIFICATION SYSTEMS

1. Water Wastage

One of the main disadvantages of the commercial RO water purifier is that it uses more water than it produces. When compared to the production of filtered water, a greater amount of water is flushed out during the purification process as wastewater. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has stated that the water utilized by commercial RO devices is almost three times the amount of water they purify. It has also been proven that the commercial RO purifiers only recover 5-15% of purified water. It can be said that the whole purification process needs approximately 4 gallons of water to give out 1 gallon of purified water.

2. Removes Essential Minerals 

Commercial RO can remove more than 90% of all pollutants in drinking water, including essential minerals which are in the dissolved form. It happens because the molecules of minerals are much larger in size than molecules of water itself. Commercial RO water purifier filters out dissolved impurities while removing natural minerals like magnesium, iron, sodium, and calcium which are significant to the human body, which may result in a deficiency of minerals in the body. As natural minerals get leached out, the water becomes de-mineralized, and as a result, the taste of the water also gets affected.

3. No Surity of Purity

Despite purifying the water by filtering out almost every kind of contaminant, a commercial RO system fails to kill bacteria and viruses that cause water-borne diseases. The probability of microorganisms passing through the RO membrane is high. It is therefore recommended that the RO water be treated with a UV water purifier at the last stage before water is dispensed. Furthermore, bacteria cause degradation in membrane quality, which eventually leads to contamination via pinhole leaks.

4. Expensive initial investment and ongoing maintenance costs

Traditional RO plants have a high initial investment cost and require a significant budget to meet maintenance expenses over time. Not only is this a burden for most organizations, particularly start-ups, but frequent malfunctions may result in delays and unanticipated expenditures, resulting in financial and intangible losses for the business owner.

COMMERCIAL UV PURIFICATION

Commercial UV water purification is a method of water filtration that uses ultra-violet light to kill all germs, bacteria, microbes, cysts, etc. in water. Commercial UV water purification is a simple but effective process that destroys around 99.99% of the harmful organisms in the water. There is a tiny mercury lamp inside the purifier that produces short wave UV light. These UV light rays irradiate the water and penetrate the cells of bacteria and viruses, destroying their ability to reproduce. The microbes and organisms fail to multiply and eventually die. Commercial UV water purification is usually done in conjunction with other forms of filtration such as reverse osmosis.

AI and IoT Applications across Major Industries

Connecting things to the Internet has brought a revolution in the business world. With IoT (Internet of Things), machines have become smarter, allowing businesses to generate more value. Phones, watches, buildings, and offices – everything can now connect to the Internet and perform some of the amazing functions unthinkable earlier.

Companies are incorporating Artificial Intelligence—in particular, machine learning—into their IoT applications. AI applications for IoT enable companies to avoid unplanned downtime, increase operating efficiency, spawn new products and services, and enhance risk management.

According to a report by Statista, IoT technology holds significant potential across industries, with an estimated 22 billion IoT devices installed in 2018. The study predicts that there will be around 50 billion IoT devices connected by 2030. That’s huge! Below are the industries that make the most of IoT and AI development.

1. Healthcare:

The Healthcare sector has started making optimum use of AI and IoT technologies. IoT technology in Healthcare is represented by tracking systems and real-time health systems and is responsible for improving patient treatment, diagnosis, medical and diagnostic equipment maintenance, and remote surgeries. Connected Healthcare is necessary for correct decisions, right actions, smart treatment, and thus patient satisfaction.

2. Hospitality

The hospitality industry has transformed itself with the use of AI and IoT. The IoT technology helps deliver a personalized experience for guests and reduces their waiting time.

With the help of AI and IoT applications, hotels can create super personalized rooms. The room’s features can be controlled through the guest’s mobile phone or the provided tablet. The IoT-integrated rooms would predict repairs and maintenance of devices and alert the maintenance staff on time, greet the guest by their name when they enter the room and send location data to guests for a smoother arrival.

3. Retail

The Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence technology helps retailers reduce operational costs and enhance customers’ experiences through new and innovative use cases. It improves customer experience by using data from surveillance cameras and social media, which allow retailers to accurately predict customer behavior and habits. Most retailers find inventory management tedious. Inaccurate inventory tracking causes stockouts, overstocking, and shrinkage. IoT and AI can automate inventory visibility. Smart inventory management solutions can improve procurement planning. Just before the product is about to run out of stock, the system automatically reorders supply based on IoT data analytics. Fully automated stores allow customers to pick up the items they wish to purchase after walking into the store. Customers can walk out with the items, and payment is processed automatically, and the customers get a receipt on their phone.

4. Finance

IoT is now becoming increasingly secure. Banks and customers have become accustomed to managing financial transactions through different connected devices. It is not uncommon to see smart cash points with connected cash vending machines. As the amount of data transferred and gathered is huge with IoT, financial businesses can measure risk accurately. With time, banks will start using sensors and data analytics to collect a lot more information about customers and thus offer personalized services. It will help the banks understand how their customers buy and spend their money.

AI and IoT in Commercial Water Purifier Industry

 The quality of drinking water is one thing that we cannot afford to compromise – not one bit. Water-borne diseases like diarrhea, hepatitis, typhoid, and cholera, or illness due to contaminants like arsenic or lead have caused large-scale health hazards in India. Reports suggest that over 20,000 lives are victims of these diseases from 2013 to 2020 in the country.

To overcome this challenge, the commercial water purifier sector needs to adopt new technologies and ways of working, many of which may be seen as disruptive when compared to traditional methods of water supply. Several disruptive technologies which could have widespread positive impacts in the commercial  water purifier industry have been identified, including ‘Internet Water.’ Digital thinking will impact every aspect of the commercial water purifier industry, from the management of sources, treatment technology, consumption, and customer engagement, to re-use, collection, and recovery of economically, and environmentally important resources. Smart sensor-based technologies are used to monitor water quality and reduce contamination.

Cloudtap - Internet Water is one such IoT-enabled commercial water purifier that was created in response to the high upfront and operating expenses, maintenance difficulties, and the market's demand for improvement of existing commercial water purifier solutions. But more than anything else, Internet Water tracks the performance of your commercial water purifier 24x7 and reports purity and performance to the user in real-time.

Cloudtap: Internet Water – The Future of Commercial Water Purification Sector

Cloudtap- Next-gen RO+UV commercial water purifier is artificial Intelligence (AI) & Internet of Things (IoT) enabled water purifier with inbuilt sensors. Cloudtap – The Internet Water removes toxins and harmful bacteria but retains the necessary minerals and vitamins. In addition, these one-of-a-kind commercial water purifier is ingrained with new-age technology that keeps a tab on water consumption, pH level, TDS level, turbidity, mineral content, water temperature, and so much more through smartphones.

Cloudtap, India’s first and only RO+UV commercial water purification service is powered by the Internet and AI to give you a continuous flow of pure water 24x7 and report performance and purity to you in real-time. Whether simply UV, or a combination of RO and UV technologies, Cloudtap is a revolution in the water purification space.

The Cloudtap purification plant with sensors continuously monitors vital water quality parameters and plant performance 24x7 and sends this data to the internet-based Cloudtap engine. The engine further sends this data to an AI system that receives this data and analyses it, using deep learning proprietary algorithms to ensure that the water is pure. The Internet Water AI system even detects minor abnormalities which signify potential problems in the making. Performance alerts detected by the AI system are automatically routed to the nearest field support engineering team based on the GPS location via the Cloudtap engine. Faults or even potential faults are resolved before they lead to a breakdown in the system. To ensure complete transparency, customers have 24x7 access to Cloudtap's online dashboard where they can check water purity and plant performance of all their Cloudtap installations, whether UV powered, or having both RO+UV in their purification process.

Cloudtap- Internet Water is cost-effective with great health benefits. We don't offer filtered water; we offer a healthier version of clean drinking water infused with essential minerals and vitamins. Our commercial water purifiers are designed to provide pure water in commercial spaces. On top of that, everything is absolutely automated and requires little to no human intervention. If the water quality goes down, the purifier is equipped to immediately notify an expert technician so that consumers won't have to worry about these things. Cloudtap, the commercial water purifier is equipped to send requests to the nearest service engineer as soon as the water quality goes down. The brand believes that consumers should have access to validated data to know what is happening inside the purifier and consume water only after inspecting the quality

Contact the pioneers of internet water technology in India today to learn how digital technology can be applied to your traditional water purification system to improve purity, reduce water waste, or lower your purification costs. Get in touch with the Cloudtap team to bring cutting-edge digital water technology to your company! Call us at +91-9321005309 or email us at crm@cloudtap.in