KOCHI: If everything goes according to plan, the heavily polluted 11-km long Perandoor Canal that cuts through the city will regain its old glory in a year or two with the technical team of a private firm along with their Japanese collaborators bringing the patented Japanese technology to do the same. The technology showcased before a host of people, including the MP K. V. Thomas, MLAs P. T. Thomas, Hibi Eden, Anwar Sadath and A. M. Ariff and Kochi mayor Soumini Jain here on Saturday by a three-member team from Japan uses a specially designed equipment that is immersed in water to generate and spread micro and nanobubbles.
The process does not use any consumables or chemicals and requires only low power for its running and nothing else. According to the trio, Masanori Yamada, Jun Kubo and Teppei Yamada, the system has been successfully deployed in large scale purification of rivers, lakes and canals and is coming to India for the first time. N. Jehangir, managing director, Nest Group that is collaborating with the Japanese on the customised device, said it was experimented to clean the water collected from Karipuzha canal on the outskirts of the city also.
“The technology of generating and spreading micro and nanobubbles works on the method of infusing oxygen into the contaminated water. It is a highly sophisticated version of the aeration process. It sucks air from the outer atmosphere and only channels the oxygen into the canal. The dissolved oxygen helps in the growth of bacteria which disintegrate the weeds, waste and silt and also dies. This process generates water and carbon dioxide of which carbon dioxide escapes into air and water remains. Thus we can get clean water,” said K. Shamsudeen, vice-president, Nest Group, who travelled to US and Taiwan to study the working of the system.
He said considering the current condition of Perandoor canal, which was described by the Japanese experts as the dirtiest canal they have seen, the machine needs to be installed in every 500 metres, to clean the water. “But once it is purified and further dumping of waste is stopped, this can be relocated to another water body. Considering the current condition of the Perandoor canal, it will take one-two years to purify the water if dumping is stopped, where fishes can grow, and people can take a bath, but not drink,” Mr Shamsudeen said. “We could purify the Perandoor canal water in the tank collected in 24 hours,” he said. Mayor Soumini Jain said that this was a welcome development and the Corporation was keen to promote any step in cleaning Perandoor canal while P. T. Thomas said the technology should come at the earliest to clean Edappally canal also.
