Prof Ramsey Saunders and postgraduate student Shazaad Ali Shah of the Physics Department of the University of the West Indies at St Augustine have grabbed one of three first prizes awarded for best poster at the International Conference of Renewable Energies and Power Quality. The conference, organised by the European Association for Renewable Energy and Power Quality, was held at Santiago de Compostela, Spain, from March 28-30. Saunders told the T&T Guardian the conference addressed all areas of renewable energy and problems associated with the introduction of electricity generated by renewable energy sources into conventional electrical grids. The topics, Saunders said, included solar energy, small hydro energy, wind energy, fuel cells, geothermal energy, remote sensing and renewable energies, modelling simulation and optimisation, wave energy and biomass.
The first prize, Saunders explained, was awarded from 274 presentations worldwide at a special ceremony at the Galician Congress Centre in Santiago de Compostela.The poster and paper on which the award was made is titled "A reactor for rapid disinfectant in rural areas and post-disaster situations" by Shah and Saunders. Saunders told the T&T Guardian that the solar disinfection (SODIS) method, the standard technique offered internationally for water disinfection using solar energy in rural areas in developing countries, would disinfect one litre of water in about five hours. But in the work presented, solar energy was combined with nanotechnology to yield ten litres in ten minutes. This new technology, he said, would be invaluable to many developing countries in which there are as many as 2.5 million deaths annually from diarrhoea resulting from E. coli bacterial infections from contaminated water.
