ABSTRACT Ultrapure water (UPW) is essential for haemodialysis and high-precision industrial processes, yet many facilities, especially in resource-constrained settings, still depend on fragile, manually supervised treatment systems. This study reports the design, development, and field validation of a scalable IoT-enabled membrane–resin integrated system for reliable UPW production. The process combines a cascaded polyether urea (PU) reverse osmosis (RO) configuration with mixed-bed resins and electrodeionisation (EDI) to achieve multi-stage purification from Type II to Type I quality. Bench-scale trials (20–70 LPH) using hydrophilised PU thin-film composite RO membranes were used to optimise operating pressure, water recovery, and permeate quality. An optimised 2,000 LPH pilot plant was then installed at ESIC Hospital, Hyderabad, and integrated with an Internet of Things (IoT) platform featuring online TDS and flow sensors, cloud-based data logging, and a mobile dashboard for real-time monitoring. Over one year of continuous operation, the system consistently produced pathogen-free water with low TDS and achieved high overall recovery while enabling reuse of RO reject for non-potable uses. The results demonstrate a robust, digitally supervised approach for sustainable UPW production in medical and industrial environments.
Fothedar et al. (Sat,) studied this question.