IIT students win global competition for earthenware cooler

New Delhi, Oct 29: Innovating on the age-old concept of using earthenware to keep the water cool, two students of IIT Roorkee have built 'Evacool', an air cooler which uses the same fundamentals of cooling as employed by many Indians in use of earthenwares and won an award for it.

Raja Jain and Nimisha Gupta aced the global competition held by Schneider Electric, a French MNC specializing in energy and automation solutions, in Paris outdoing 12 other teams.

"We have developed a cooling system for air, it's called Evacool. It works on the principle of evaporation," said Gupta, a fourth-year student of chemical engineering at Indian Institute of Technology-Roorkee.

"So, we know that Indians have been using earthenware for cooling for a long time and we have applied similar concept for the cooling of air."

Jain, a third-year biotechnology student told IANS over the phone: "Two qualities of Evacool are that it's very cheap and it doesn't emit greenhouse gases and unlike other air coolers, it will use less energy."

"Where a routine cooler uses about 300 watts per hour, Evacool uses 65 watts per hour."

The two students presented their prototype at the competition 'Go Green in City 2017' held in Paris in August after having been shortlisted in May. It took them on two months to conceptualize and build the device.

The winning team was awarded an opportunity to build their career with Schneider Electric, a world VIP-style trip, visiting two destinations facilities as well as networking opportunities with employees and senior management at Schneider Electric, said the firm in the statement.