Invention: Closed-loop shower
Mehrdad Mahdjoubi's space-age shower is changing the way we think about domestic water usage, particularly in the bathroom. The Oas, a closed-loop system, was conceived while Mahdjoubi was working on NASA's Journey to Mars project. It filters and reuses water to consume 90% less water and 80% less energy than a conventional shower.
Conventional showers in Europe typically
spray out around 10 litres of water per minute, meaning a 10-minute shower
can use up to 100 litres of water - a quantity that accounts for about a
third of daily domestic water consumption and can be even higher for people who
shower more frequently.
Because only a few minutes of each shower are spent rinsing soap and shampoo from our bodies, the majority of the water goes down the drain more or less clean. Instead of wasting this otherwise clean water, Mahdjoubi's shower, which is named after the Swedish word for "oasis" and was developed through his company Orbital Systems, uses digital technology to circulate as little as five litres of water for the duration of a shower.
Societal benefit
Recirculating and purifying water is a new way to save water, and the Oas - the only product of its kind on the market - is currently the most efficient shower system in the world in terms of water and energy savings.
A Master of Fine Arts graduate of the Industrial Design programme at Lund University in Sweden, the 28-year-old developed his idea for the Oas while participating in a collaboration between the university and NASA's Journey to Mars project in 2012. During project work, Mahdjoubi and project members wondered whether it would be possible to establish the same living standard on Mars as on Earth. "It was clear to me that we had to use our resources as cleverly as possible. And that's what we do here," says Mahdjoubi.
Mahdjoubi's shower has obvious advantages both in locations where water is scarce, such as drought-stricken areas, and also where a lot of people shower, such as gyms, hospitals and public pools. According to the UN, water scarcity currently impacts over two billion people - or almost one-quarter of the world's population.
Studies done by the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control have found that water filtered by the Oas is cleaner than tap water. A shower system that ensures disease-free water has obvious benefits for nursing homes and hospitals.
An added bonus is that the Oas user experience is better than that of a regular shower. If someone uses water elsewhere in the house, the pressure and temperature of a conventional shower can fluctuate. But because the Oas is a closed-loop system with comfort-correcting functionality, it is not subject to those fluctuations. Plus, in households where the water flow is restricted or reduced, the Oas can deliver more than double the water flow.
Since the launch of its system, Orbital Systems estimates it has saved over 12 million litres of water.
Economic benefit
Founded in 2012, Orbital Systems has pursued an aggressive intellectual property strategy to protect its position as an innovator in a global market for showerheads and shower panels which is forecast to reach a value of approximately EUR 3.3 billion by 2024. Coupled with this strategy, the company has raised EUR 25 million in investments, including backing from Karl-Johan Persson, CEO of H&M (Hennes & Mauritz), and Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Skype Technologies.
A small company with its headquarters in Malmö, Sweden, and offices in the United States, Orbital Systems employs over 50 people and produces less than a thousand Oas units a year. Given the small production numbers, a unit costs over EUR 3 000, but Mahdjoubi expects the cost of the shower and the filters (EUR 50) to go down as production increases. The first prototypes of the system cost EUR 9 000 each in 2014, but by 2017 the system's price had fallen by two-thirds. In the next couple of years, Mahdjoubi predicts the system should cost about double that of a dishwasher - perhaps as little as EUR 500.
As the company continues to focus on core elements of the technology and place less emphasis on style, Mahdjoubi sees the price of his shower system sinking even further, thereby helping to address the needs of developing countries.
This emphasis on core technology will in future also allow regular showerheads and fixtures to be combined with the system, broadening the options in terms of budget and style.
