Bukhara — The Uzbekistan government on Tuesday has signed memorandum of understanding with an Israeli company that generates fresh drinking water from thin air.
The deal costs millions of dollars and a successful Watergen pilot has been installed in an orphanage in the city of Bukhara.
The deal was signed between Uzbekistan’s Minister of Innovation, Ibrohim Abdurakhmonov and Israeli company Watergen’s Vice-President of marketing and sales, Michael Rutman.
The technology uses a series of filters to purify the air. No sooner, the air is sucked in and chilled to extract its humidity, the water that forms is treated and transformed into clean drinking water.
The technology uses a plastic heat exchanger rather than an aluminum one, which helps reduce costs. This also includes a flagship software that operates the devices.
The main engineer behind the innovation was—Arye Kohavi, a former combat reconnaissance company commander in the Israeli Army.
The production capacity of Gen-M water generator is 800 liters per day and it weighs around 780 kilograms.
The engineers say that, because of its own internal water treatment system,the only infrastructure needed is an electricity source.
Since Uzbekistan is dependent on two principal rivers for its fresh water supply and due to its fast-growing population and its neighbors Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan divert the two rivers for hydro-power, it faces huge water shortage.
Uzbekistan’s Deputy Prime Minister, Aziz Abdukhakimov, said that Uzbekistan “desperately needs technology such as that provided by Watergen in order to improve its water sector.”
The Watergen company was established in 2010 in the central Israeli city of Rishon Lezion and its president is Dr. Michael Mirilashvili who is a Russian-Israeli entrepreneur.
