Defence Institute of Physiology & Allied Sciences (DIPAS) transferred the technology of "Solar Snow Melter" to three firms i.e. M/s Vishwa Traders Kanpur, M/s Madnani Industries Kanpur and M/s Vijay Aluminium Works, Kanpur on 15th Feb. 2019 in the presence of Dr Bhuvnesh Kumar, Director DIPAS, Dr Lilly Ganju, Associate Director, Dr Rajiv Varshney, Head TMD and Inventor scientists Dr Sanjeev Kumar Sharma and Mr Satish Chouhan.
Water is the basic necessity of the life. At high altitude although there is lot of snow but there is scarcity of potable water. Army posts located in remote high altitude locations do not have electricity and kerosene stoves are mostly used to melt the snow. The transportation of fuel to the remote areas is another problem. At some places, fuel has to be air lifted adding to the cost and logistic problems. To overcome these problems, a solar snow melter has been developed by DIPAS which will be able to meet water requirements to a great extent at snow bound peaks in high altitude locations thus saving cost.
Solar snow melter works on the principle of greenhouse effect. The sun facing surface of Solar snow melter is made up of double walled polycarbonate sheet, which allows the sun rays to enter inside the heat exchanger but do not allow the reflected infra-red radiation to escape. Thus the temperature inside increases. The copper heat exchanger melts the snow and provides water which remains stored inside the storage tank till it is used. It provides 5-7 lts of water per hour without using any oil or electricity. Its successful trial shave been conducted at Leh, ChangLa and Tawang.
