Efficient Shower

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Since Chennai was plagued by water shortages, technologies to minimize water use were worked on at the Shri AMM Murugappa Chettiar Research Centre(MCRC).  We worked towards a one litre bath. Can a technology be built that men and women (long hair included) can use to take a complete wash within one litre of water?

When you take a bath or shower the main idea is to wet the skin surface before the application of soap. In all the conventional ways this is done, the water is used very inefficiently. Stand in a shower and most of the water bounces of you. If you use a bath tub it is the most colossal waste of water. The typical mug and bucket system also is a waste us only a very small fraction wets the body and the rest falls to the ground without touching the body.

People who are bedridden are given a sponge bath. This is method uses just enough water to wet the body and after application of a suitable disinfectant (or soap) the rinsing is done again with a sponge. A wet cloth could just as well be used instead of a sponge.

At MCRC we designed and built a mist bath. We had an air compressor push compressed air through a custom built nozzle. Water was pushed through the centre of the nozzle and air from the compressor would hit it from all sides and make a fine mist. The nozzle was attaché to flexible hose and could be moved to different parts of the body. This shower was tested by men and women staff members. The men could shower in 1 litre of water comfortably and the women used about 1.5 litres.

The mist would be cooler than the surrounding air and ideal for a hot summer day in Chennai. Imagine how water consumption in the city would be reduced if everybody used just 1 litre of water for their daily bath. There is a design challenge in building this shower.

The simplest version of this would be to take the hand sprayer that is used to water plants, spray perfume or cleaning solution and fill with water. Washing this way, or with a sponge/cloth, takes less time compared to throwing water with a mug on to the body and conserves water as well.