ResTech, a joint venture between Ampcontrol and the University of Newcastle (UoN), celebrated its 20th anniversary with an industry open day to showcase past and current industrial innovations. On centre stage was ‘Gilghi’, an Off-Grid Water Purifying System that transforms undrinkable water into pure drinkable water.
Gilghi continues to resonate deeply with our team, not just as a project, but as a purpose. It represents the successful engineering of a modular, off-the-shelf water treatment solution that’s delivering real, lasting impact in communities where access to clean water is limited.
Access to clean water is a global priority and is recognised as Goal 6 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: ensuring water and sanitation for all. In Australia, most people, especially city dwellers, take drinkable water for granted. The setting of national drinking water guidelines is challenging for several key reasons:
1. Jurisdictional differences: Each state or territory is responsible for water management, yet the national Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG) are voluntary.
2. Diverse water sources: Due to Australia’s vast geography and differing water sources, a one-size-fits-all approach to water treatment is very difficult.
3. Local infrastructure and capacity: Some regions, especially remote and under-resourced communities, lack the infrastructure or resources to meet strict standards.
These remote and under-resourced communities have limited access to water, and often, the water is so bad it can literally make you sick. Many times, the communities substitute water for soft drinks, causing further ongoing health problems. These communities don’t have the skills, money, technology, or resources to install or maintain the required infrastructure.
Engineering isn’t just about solving problems—it’s about redefining what’s possible, especially when the challenge is as vital as delivering clean water to communities in need. For the team, the opportunity to work on such a project marked a career milestone: developing a piece of technology that brings meaningful change to people who quite literally can’t live without it—clean drinking water in remote locations.
Our engineers applied a first-principles design methodology, breaking systems down to focus on three key design aspects; process design, electrical supply and control, and manufacturing. This approach enabled the creation of optimised, purpose-built solutions. This project encouraged innovation, understanding, and robustness, and ResTech has since utilised this work and matured it into various other applications.
All of these challenges formed the development of Gilghi, a breakthrough off-grid containerised water treatment plant. Gilghi uses robust filtering technology and is designed to be small-scale, modular, and customisable to meet the needs of the site. Gilghi can be configured to treat any available water source to provide crystal-clear drinking water. Just bring your empty bottle, turn the tap, and fill up.
The Gilghi unit is engineered as a standard or typical unit, allowing reconfiguration and scalability. The container size, solar array, batteries, and power systems can be configured to generate the required power to output 28kL per day, and includes water treatment processes such as media filtering, sterilisation, and reverse osmosis in the standard unit. The customised engineering of the units allows for scalability up to 250kL per day.
An outline of the typical variations is illustrated below.
The Gilghi unit addresses skills, cost, technology, and resources challenges in remote communities by providing a fully functional system that can be delivered by truck and requires minimal maintenance to supply clean, cost-effective drinking water.
This project continues to resonate deeply with our team, as it represents the successful engineering of an off-the-shelf solution that delivers a tangible and lasting impact on people's lives, particularly in communities where access to clean water is limited. It stands as a testament to the power of practical innovation in solving real-world challenges.
Grounded in first principles, supported by emerging technologies, and driven by cost reductions in solar and battery storage, we’ve seen a surge in innovation across small-scale, stand-alone applications. Innovation runs not only in our blood, but in our water, with this unique, fully portable solution that transforms undrinkable water into clean, drinkable water. Cheers to that!
For more information on Gilghi click here
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