Prof. Dr. Quazi Hamidul Bari of Department of Civil Engineering of Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET), Khulna has been granted patent on ‘Column Type Solar Desalination Unit’ by the Department of Patents, Designs & Trademarks, Bangladesh. (Patent No. 1005461; Title of Invention: Column Type Solar Desalination Unit; Filing Date 27/05/2012; Inventor: Quazi Hamidul Bari). The copy of letter of patent was handed over to the Vice-Chancellor of KUET Prof. Dr. Muhammed Alamgir on May 19, 2016.

Abstract of invention: Availability of the sources of drinking water has been reducing rapidly in many urban and rural areas. The situation is deplorable in problematic areas where the sources of water contain high salinity and other impurities. Distilled water produced from any low cost method can be used as drinking purposes. One of the low cost and energy efficient methods to produce distillate (saline free water) is solar desalination. The highest distilled water production rate of the most conventional solar desalination units is found to be varied in the range of 3 to 5 L/m2.d. To improve the production rate, a ‘Column Type Solar Desalination Unit’ has been invented by Professor Bari after a long time research since 2009. The newly invented unit has got a high production rate varies in the range of 18 to 20 L/m2.d for 1.6m vertical column. It has an added advantage that at any position of the sun the heat energy absorbed by the column is uniformly distributed on its periphery and consequently accelerates the evaporation from whole free circular surface and thereby increases the condensation. Pictorial view of a single column is shown in attached Figure. The process is sustainable and its operation and maintenance is very simple. This can be operated manually for household plant consisting of 15 to 20 columns. However a computer controlled system can be adopted for a large community plant. This type of vertical columns need a very little area compared to other conventional solar desalination units and can be placed on the southern veranda/balcony of a building, instead of placing on the roof slab. Never the less, the vertical columns can even be placed on the periphery of a roof slab and leaving the most of roof area empty and can be beneficially used for other purposes. To provide drinking water in the cheapest way from saline water in a problematic area, this invention would contribute its outcome in the national and international levels especially when we think about the scarcity of water in the arid areas affected by climate change and desert. Mass fabrication of this kind of plants would certainly reduce their price and could be affordable by people direly in need of drinking water at saline prone areas.

Earlier Professor Bari had been granted another joint patent on 'A Simple Ceramic Filter for the Removal of Arsenic and Iron from Groundwater'.