Majik Water: A Magical Solution to Kenya’s Water Crisis

When it comes to the Kenyan water crisis, there is little room for optimism. Almost 19 million Kenyans lack access to clean water. With a total population of 52 million people, roughly 37 percent of Kenyans are sating their thirst with water that is unsuitable for drinking. To make matters worse, some 27 million Kenyans face sub-standard sanitation conditions.

“There is water scarcity, where people don’t have tap water. Additionally, the water is also highly contaminated—not necessarily by silt, but by microorganisms, bacteria and viruses,” explains Beth Koigi, CEO of Majik Water, in an interview with engineering.com.

Determined to end her country’s water crisis, Koigi has designed Majik Water—a machine that harvests clean, potable water directly from moisture in the air. There is six times more water in the air compared to all the rivers of the world combined and, by tapping into this seemingly limitless resource, Majik Water offers a sustainable water solution for millions of Kenyans.

The name Majik Water is a combination of the Swahili word for water (‘maji’) and the first letter of the word for harvest (‘kuvuna’), which is exactly what the machine does: harvest water. Koigi strives to provide local solutions to a local problem, which is why thirty percent of the material used to create Majik Water units comes from Kenya—and virtually all its employees who assemble the devices are also Kenyan.

The machine itself operates by first using a large fan to draw in air and forcing it through an electrostatic filter. From there, the air is guided through a condensation coil where a compressor circulates refrigerants. These refrigerants allow the coil to acquire a lower temperature than the air, resulting in condensation. The condensed water flows into a holding tank where a level-switch ensures that the machine turns off the moment the tank is full.

Majik Water units come in various capacities, with the smallest one providing 25 liters per day of water, and the largest one supplying 1000 litres per day (larger capacity tanks are attached externally). These figures are based on relative humidity levels of 60 percent and a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. That said, Majik Water units can still supply water at relative humidity levels as low as 35 percent, allowing the units to operate satisfactorily across the full gamut of Kenyan weather conditions.

A machine that produces up to 1000 liters of water a day would democratize water for Kenyans from all walks of life. Such quantities of water can even be used for irrigation in green houses, rendering previously water-stressed land farmable. Individual 1000-liter Majik Water units can even be stacked up to produce as much as 100,000 liters of water per day.

To combat dust and microorganisms, Majik Water units contain three levels of water treatment systems. At the first level, the water undergoes reverse osmosis whereby pressure is used to force unfiltered water through a semi-permeable membrane. Next, the water is passed through an activated carbon filter—a form of charcoal that is crushed and treated at high temperatures, resulting in a fine black powder that has low-volume pores and antiseptic properties.

The water then undergoes mineralization, where it is imbued with minerals like magnesium and calcium that are normally found in natural water. Without any minerals in the water, it would not only taste flat but would serve no health benefits—it might even have adverse effects.

Given her country’s economic conditions, Koigi is intimately aware of how limited electricity is a problem for many Kenyans, particularly in remote regions. To address this issue, Majik Water units can be customized to work on solar energy or a generator. Per the clients’ request, the units can even be designed to operate on solar energy during the day and on the grid at night.

Majik Water are currently installing IoT monitoring systems to their newer range of devices. As the units are frequently installed in remote corners of the country, these sensors would enable Koigi’s team to monitor the units’ performance relative to the temperature and humidity levels of the surrounding air (similar to dashboard features for smartphone apps). These sensors would also alert the team in case any technical issues are detected within the units, so that troubleshooting can be expedited.

Koigi’s battle with water stress in Kenya is not new. As an undergraduate student at Chuka University in 2013, Koigi repeatedly fell sick due to the poor water quality in her dormitories. Water was pumped directly from a nearby river, and was concentrated with silt and other contaminants. Koigi decided to buy water filters, but the cheapest one she could find cost $50. For context, the average Kenyan household income is $641 and even then, 66 percent of Kenyans live on less than $100 a month.

“Water contamination is a huge issue in these regions,” explains Koigi. “It’s hard to trust even bottled water in Kenya because there is a huge black market for it.”

With nothing to fall back on except her own ingenuity, Koigi began using activated carbon as a filter. By forcing the river water through a layer of activated carbon, she was able to extract purified water—and in doing so, invented her first water filtration device.

“It was working really well because it was removing the soil particles,” Koigi recalls. “A lot of people were intrigued. At that point, I was also volunteering in a children’s home, so I designed one for them too.”

With a capacity of 50 liters per hour, Koigi’s water filters quickly gained traction within her community and, after graduating, she became the founder of Aqua Clean Initiative. Aqua Clean provided cost-effective water filters for low-income families. Instead of water filters that cost $50, Koigi was selling filters that cost $1 and could even be paid for in installments.

While activated carbon has many properties that make it useful for water filtration, it does have drawbacks. It cannot remove fluorides, pesticides and many other pollutants. More importantly, filters can only be used if water is available. Towards the end of 2016, a severe drought derailed Koigi’s Aqua Clean Initiative. With sales plummeting, Koigi knew she had to address this new shift in Kenya’s water crisis.

“Seventy percent of our electricity is hydropower,” she explains. “So basically, when there is drought, there is a lot of water rationing, and a lot of electricity rationing. Those two go hand-in-hand. During that time, I was living in Nairobi in an apartment, and for months we didn’t have tap water at all.”

As the drought continued, those who had boreholes and other water sources began selling water at $0.50 for every 20-liter container. With people needing to drink, cook and clean on a daily basis, such prices proved exorbitant. Even transporting this water became difficult as many had to carry several 20-liter containers over long distances.

Experiencing such dearth of water, Koigi began looking for creative solutions. In 2017, she applied to Singularity University in Santa Clara, U.S.A., where she met liked-minded individuals like Anastasia Kaschenko, an American environmental scientist, and Clare Sewell, a British economist. Together, they began working on a machine that could harvest moisture from the air—and that’s how Majik Water was born. Today, Kaschenko and Sewell serve as Majik Water’s chief technology officer and chief operating officer, respectively.

The initial Majik Water prototype incorporated a combination of condensation and silica gel, a desiccant that naturally absorbs moisture and releases it when heated. Unfortunately, combining desiccants and condensation proved problematic and so, the team ultimately decided to use condensation as the sole method of harvesting water.

From the outset, work on Majik Water has been an ever-evolving process. At the moment, a 500-liter Majik Water unit costs $12,500. As Koigi continues to optimize the machine, she admits that there are still ways to go when it comes to the price of the machine as well as the capital expenditure (CapEx).

“We are looking at how to reduce the CapEx by making use of mass production,” she says. “Additionally, we are exploring innovative ways of reducing the energy consumption of these devices.”

The Majik Water team has devised two separate business models that allow them to target three different types of clientele: corporations, NGOs, and individual households.

The first model operates as pay-as-you-go: people can buy a liter of water from the device for as low as $0.01. This model utilizes the smaller capacity units which function like paid water dispensers.

The second model offers water solutions to corporations and NGOs whereby the machine can be used to meet various company demands, be it water consumption or industrial usage. In fact, Majik Water has offered water solutions to several Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft and AB InBev. Majik Water units have also been implemented in other countries like South Africa and India.

Koigi has discovered an additional benefit of working with corporations and NGOs: encouraging corporate social responsibility (CSR). By targeting companies that are operating in water stressed regions, Majik Water has been involved in numerous community impact projects. Since 2017, they have provided thousands of liters of water for people impacted by draught and sanitation issues.

Since its inception, Majik Water has won several accolades, including first prize at EDF Pulse Africa awards and second place at MIT’s Water Innovation competition. Majik Water is also featured in “Brave Blue World,” a documentary currently available on Netflix that showcases sustainable technology to address water stress issues. Majik Water units have been donated to schools, pediatric clinics and children’s homes—so that the most vulnerable members of Kenyan society can safely quench their thirst with clean water.