Two students of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, are all set to take you back to the future. A new room-cooling solution devised by the duo — chemical engineering student Nimisha Gupta and student of biotechnology Raja Jain — takes inspiration from “ghada” (earthen pots) to cool down your rooms efficiently and without adding to your carbon footprint.
Gupta and Jain’s innovation, Evacool, recently won Schneider Electric’s global ‘Go Green in the City 2017’ contest, which was held in Paris.
1,000-year-old tech
Talking to BusinessLine , Gupta said: “We tried to use the 1,000-year-old technology of earthen pots to keep rooms cool, but its usage was very limited. Evacool is based on evaporative cooling. When evaporation takes place, it cools the surface and the temperature of air around it cools as well. We tried to use the same model.”
Jain and Gupta have been at this project for over six months and hope to market their product soon.
“Once we are done with the research and development and get the patent, Evacool will soon enter the market,” Jain said.
According to them, the machine, which will use cylindrical baked clay ducts along with an air source and a water source, can cool an average room by 10 degree Celsius. It will cost ₹4,000, making it an affordable cooling solution for the mass market. It uses only 65-100 W of electricity per hour (equivalent to a fan). Besides, over its entire life-cycle, Evacool produces 96 per cent less greenhouse gases than an air-conditioner.
The two students will also get the opportunity to visit Schneider offices in any two countries of their choice. This is the second time an Indian institute has emerged the winner in this competition; IIT- Kharagpur won in 2015.
Rachna Mukherjee, CHRO, Schneider Electric India, said: “The initiative received an overwhelming response from across the globe, with 19,772 applications from 180 countries. We were delighted at the innovative solutions to vexed global issues which were shared by young minds.”