Now a device to test metal content of water in your home

Bengaluru: Worried about the quality of water supplied to  your home? There could now be a solution at hand as two engineering students from the city have developed the prototype of a gadget, which could help people test the metal content of the water used in their homes. 

The portable device developed by Antony Micheal Jenitter, 20, a final year telecom engineering student of CMR Institute of Technology, Kundalahalli, and  Nitin Kumar, a third year student of the same college, can come in handy for farmers too as it can establish the mineral content of soil as well.

“With water pollution on the rise in almost every metropolitan city  there are carcinogenic heavy metals in water bodies, which are also potential drinking water sources, and this is something that needs to be dealt with urgently,” points out  Antony, explaining the relevance of the device.

 He also notes that usually the mineral content of  soil can be identified only after a sample is sent to a lab and if farmers spend at least Rs 150 on the  tests. But now they can test it themselves and at much cheaper cost as the new device along with the necessary reagents for the testing, costs under Rs 1000 and  each test, merely around Rs 3. 

The prototype was designed as part of Research and Development (R&D)  for a project led by Prof. Bhavya, a civil engineering lecturer at CMRIT for her doctoral thesis. 

The team is currently approaching companies for funding to mass produce the gadget and is planning to apply for a global patent for it before introducing it in the market.