Design and Testing of LEDSOL Components for Sustainable Access to Clean Water in Africa

Abstract

Access to potable water is still a challenge in many African regions. Our transnational project, LEDSOL, aims at enabling a sustainable access to clean water through a combination of three components: a smart UV/LED disinfection unit, a solar-energy-based power source, and a standalone low-cost satellite-based positioning engine. This paper presents the first unified set of test results based on the three individual components of LEDSOL system and discusses further challenges. Water quality measurements from Togo and Algeria are also presented to illustrate the severity of the problem.