Ensuring safe drinking water in rural households, using locally- available and affordable resources
The problem we want to solve
In 2020, 70% of Sub-Saharian Africa population did not have access to safely managed drinking water.
In Ethiopia, where 80% of a total population of 120 million people lives in rural area, only 5.25% of them has access to safely managed drinking water services (source).
Especially in rural areas, 70 up to 80 % of fecal contamination is caused by water recontamination during transport and storage in dirty jerry-cans. This causes a lack of safe, clean drinking water at the household level in rural communities.
Our unique solution
Clara solves the problem of water recontamination by continuously chlorinating water flowing in a pipe using only kitchen salt and solar energy.
With Clara we can provide safe drinking water at low cost and ensure sustainability in the long term as support can be provided thanks to remote monitoring service.
Remote Monitoring
With continuous status monitoring, support but also maintenance can be planned and provided from field offices or HQs. This enables a sustainable operation also after a cooperation and development project or a humanitarian aid action has ended.
NGOs, humanitarian aid agencies and water facilities can ensure sustainable operations by planning maintenance and reporting KPIs and successful achievements to the donors.
Continuous Disinfection
Clara continuously chlorinates water in a pipe by dosing the right amount of sodium hypochlorite based on water flow.
The concentration of 0.5 mg/l of Free Residual Chlorine prevents water recontamination and keeps the water safe in a jerry-can for up to 12 hours.
Clara is scalable disinfecting from 4 m3/h up to 30 m3/h serving up to 36’000 people per installation
Chemical Independent
Clara eliminates the effort and the risk for logistics to supply expensive chlorine.
To chlorinate water only kitchen salt and electricity is needed to produce sodium hypochlorite right inside the Clara box.
Energy Independent
Clara runs independent from grid-related power supply and can be powered with a small solar panel only.
In case the electricity grid is present, a battery inside the Clara prevents the disinfection to stop in case of electricity cuts.
Where can our solution be applied?
Clara is suitable for rural areas and health care facilities where safe drinking water must be provided until the point of consumption.
Clara can be also installed in protracted situations as part of Humanitarian Aid or as sustainable enhancement of a community infrastructure.
About Clara
Clara continuously disinfects water flowing in a pipe using only kitchen salt and solar energy. At the same time, thanks to the remote monitoring system installed, NGOs, humanitarian aid agencies and water facilities can ensure sustainable operations by planning maintenance and reporting KPIs and successful achievements to the donors.
Our results
Clara has been installed in collaboration with different governmental and non-governmental stakeholders.
11,400
People have access to safe drinking water clean water from 3 rural water supply schemes
860
Patients are served on a daily basis in 2 Health care facilities that use Clara Products
0%
Presence of E.coli dropped from 75% to 0% after Clara at household level.
83%
Enough chlorine (>0.2 mg/l) was found in 83% of jerry-cans sampled at household level.
Our Achievements
Iceaddis | Aqua 4 All - Water & Sanitation Incubation Programme (WSIP)
Innovation Meets Practice: Humanitarian Innovation Exchange and Accelerator 2021
Our Products
The range of Clara products offers the right solution depending on the number of people that you want to reach.
All the Clara come with a multiyear warranty and with the options for remote monitoring service and full contract operational service.
Clara Standard
Clara-Standard is our optimal solution for a small village or a rural hospital. It can treat up to 96 m3 of water daily for 4800 people.
Our Partners
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FAQ
Because chlorine provides ongoing protection from recontamination, which makes it unique over other disinfection processes. Recontamination usually occurs in rural areas where water is not piped in the households, but it is transported and stored in jerrycans.
You can buy a Clara device by contacting us using this form.
Yes, Investigations have shown sodium hypochlorite to be an effective disinfectant having broad applications. Although a number of other disinfectants (calcium hypochlorite, ozone, UV, solar disinfection) and treatment processes (filters, slow sand filtration) have been investigated, sodium hypochlorite appears to offer the best mix of low cost, ease of use, safety, and effectiveness in areas where there is enough water to drink and water is not excessively turbid. These characteristics are the reasons why most water treatment systems in the US and Europe have been using chlorine for disinfecting drinking water for nearly 100 years. The other disinfection methods noted above also effectively disinfect water and are useful in a number of settings.
Clara is available for purchase by both private and government customers.
Only normal kitchen salt and electricity is needed! By using a simple electrolysis process, Clara transforms a salt water solution into sodium hypochlorite and doses it in the pipe based on water flow.
Yes, we provide maintenance.
It has a remote monitoring system, runs on solar and electricity, and is a completely automated equipment that disinfects water with very little human intervention.
Calcium hypochlorite in Ethiopia is imported from abroad and is therefore expensive. Its quality degrades rapidly when not stored properly and presents higher health risks for the operators during handling. Additionally, calcium hypochlorite can contain impurities like chlorate, chlorite and bromate.
The sodium hypochlorite dose will depend on the characteristics of local water. Usually an amount in the range of 5 -10 milliliters added to 20 liters of water is sufficient to inactivate the disease-causing organisms. We use simple experiments to determine the appropriate dose.