Evaluation of Water Quality from Atmospheric Water Generators Deployed Across Multiple Indian Cities: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Atmospheric Water Generators (AWGs) represent an emerging decentralized water solution that extracts moisture from ambient air to produce potable water without reliance on conventional freshwater sources. This study evaluates AWG-produced water quality at three Indian deployment sites — Pune (October 2025), Sringeri (November 2025), and Chennai (October 2025) — against IS 14543:2024, the Indian Standard for packaged drinking water, and benchmarks results against the WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality. Organoleptic, physical, chemical, toxicological, and microbiological parameters were analyzed at NABL-accredited laboratories. All three sites showed low total dissolved solids (10–32 mg/L), non-detectable heavy metals, and nondetectable pesticide residues. Two site-specific deviations were identified: elevated heterotrophic aerobic counts with yeast presence at Pune (56 CFU/mL at 22 °C), and an alkaline pH at Chennai (9.59), both outside IS 14543:2024 limits. The Sringeri site met all tested parameters. These results indicate that condensation-derived AWG water is intrinsically low in dissolved solids and free of the regulated toxicological and faecal-indicator contaminants, while microbial regrowth in storage/dispensing components and pH drift during mineralization are the principal, and correctable, risks. As this is a single-timepoint, single-sample-per-site survey without seasonal replication, the findings should be read as an initial field snapshot rather than a statistically powered comparison; recommendations for routine post-treatment, monitoring, and future multi-season sampling are provided.