Environmentalists could soon be pushing for everyone to buy a dishwasher thanks to young designer Alex Gilmour.

The recent University of Technology, Sydney graduate is up for two major student design awards for a concept that soon will make one of the most desirable home appliances guilt free – using less water than hand washing and no detergent.

Ms Gilmour's "Swash" design is a first – a self-contained microwave oven-scale unit that will take up to a four-place setting of dishes and clean and sterilise them using steam.

The unit won't need to be connected to mains water – it will use only six litres stored in an internal reservoir to do its cleaning. The water will be filtered, purified and returned to the reservoir with minimal loss, so the same water can be reused several times before the Swash has to be topped up.

Although right now it exists only in design graphics, Ms Gilmour said every element of the concept had been examined and cleared by engineering advisors and the innovations of the design would be protected by patents.

The Swash, which was the final project for Ms Gilmour's UTS Bachelor of Design in Industrial Design, has been named a finalist for both the tertiary student category of the Dupont Australia and New Zealand Innovation Awards and the Australian Design Award – Dyson Student Award, both to be announced in May.

"I set out looking at ways to save water in the home and it became clear that there had been nothing really new in the design of dishwashers for a long time," Ms Gilmour said.

"I thought a lot more people would want one if they weren't such a big appliance requiring installation, particularly in places with space restrictions like apartments and offices. And then there were the places with low-pressure mains water, or no mains water at all, like remote communities, or mobile homes, or yachts.

"I wanted something that could be bought off the shelf like a microwave and all you had to do was take it home, find some bench space, plug it in and fill it with water.

"But, on the other hand, there is nothing to stop the detergent-free steam cleaning and water reuse features from being scaled up to a bigger capacity unit. The system, because it sterilises, could also be used in a hospital setting, like a maternity ward.

"The potential environmental payoff was that people could buy a dishwasher knowing that they would be using less water than it takes to wash up in the sink and they would be putting no detergents into the environment as a result."