Israeli Cleantech Company Aims Miriam’s Well Water Purifier at Developing World

An Israeli water tech company has designed an off-grid household water purification system that it says is sustainable, cheap, easy to use, and could provide millions of households in developing countries with clean drinking water.

Throughout the developing world, family members — usually women and children — commonly walk long distances to natural water sources to fill up bottles and jerrycans.

These water bodies can be contaminated by anything from feces to chemicals, and cause diseases ranging from cholera, diarrhea, and dysentery to hepatitis A, typhoid, and polio.

To help address this, the Alumor company has developed an appliance that it calls Miriam’s Well, after the miracle source that, according to Jewish tradition, provided water to the Israelites throughout their 40 years in the wilderness.

Powered by solar energy, the modern Miriam’s Well requires no electric socket.

It is fitted with advanced ultraviolet technology that kills viruses and bacteria to US National Sanitation Foundation standards, and it contains a filter that needs rinsing just a few times a year.

Alumor’s business development director, David Waimann, a cleantech entrepreneur and trained engineer originally from the UK told The Times of Israel that household members will simply connect the device to a jerrycan or other container via a pipe, and press a button.

The device is lightweight, uses just four watts of electricity, and purifies each liter of water for less than half a cent, he said.

According to World Health Organization figures (from 2017), 144 million people collect untreated surface water from lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams, with 435 million people taking their water from unprotected wells and springs. (TOI / VFI News)

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” - John 7:38