EXTRACTING WATER FROM THIN AIR !!!

[Richard]

It always comes down to cost in the end.

[milifestyle]

On the large scale it would probably be questionable, but in small situations such as to create fresh water on large ships, camping sites, hotels etc. it might work.

[screener]

Here's the story I referred to earlier. It's older than a few years however.
Still, looks like it was working well.

http://www.sustainabletimes.ca/articles/fog.htm

[LMagic007]

Yes interesting about FOG collection. Slightly different approach from extracting water from warm air, but basic principles are similar. I'm not sure these types of technologies would be able to be widely relied upon though. Perhaps useful in certain situations. Ultimately I think the only way forward on the large scale, is for the earth to become less pollutng and more energy efficient, to help the environment repair and eventually hopefully thrive.

[Richard]

A lot can be done by creating solutions that are applicable to local conditions. Unfortunately, historically at least, Western engineering has tended to go for a "one-size-fits-all" approach. I think people are realising this isn't always the best approach however, especially after a number of high profile failures such as trying to supply drinking water to parts of the third world by exporting our large centralised treatment plant designs. Often these fail to work adequately and smaller scale solutions tend to work better in developing countries, e.g. rainwater harvesting systems, local aquifer recharge etc.

[Michael Angel]

There is a new thread on this.

H2O is a greenhouse gas that is rising.

Klimatec Base 1 AirWater Machine

Jun 30, 08 06:37 PM PDT
Klimatec Base 1 AirWater Machine

Most water coolers are meant to be a place where office gossip is circulated while acting as a water dispenser second. With the Klimatec Base 1 AirWater Machine, you will see more geeks surround it, at least for the first few weeks of it's existence. This

Klimatec Base 1 AirWater Machine

Making Water From Thin Air
May 31, 2007
Contact: Kevin Hattori (212) 407-6319

An architect pursuing a Ph.D. at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and his colleague have devised a low-tech way to collect dew from the air and turn it into fresh water. Their invention recently won an international competition seeking to make clean, safe water available to millions around the world.

The brainchild of Technion Architecture and Building Planning grad student Joseph Cory and his colleague Eyal Malka, "WatAir," is an inverted pyramid array of panels that collects dew from the air and turns it into fresh water in almost any climate.
Inspired by the dew-collecting properties of leaves, one 315 sq ft unit can extract a minimum of 48 liters of fresh water from the air each day. Depending on the number of collectors used, an unlimited daily supply of water could be produced even in remote and polluted places.

Making Water From Thin Air

Max Whisson is an Australian inventor with a remarkable concept, he calls it the Max Water.He has invented a wind-powered system that extracts water from the air.How much water can it extract?
Max thinks that 10,000 liters per day is possible from a small rooftop unit. The windmill generates energy needed to power a condensing system. Lowering the temperature of the air below the dew point releases the water trapped inside.

Max Water to Quench the Global Thirst? » The UberReview

[Michael Angel]

Another (older) reference on this I just came across.

Making water out of thin air

Friday, 2 March 2007 Anna Salleh

A wind-driven device could provide an unlimited water supply by harvesting water from the air, says its Australian inventor.

But critics are asking if it's too good to be true.

Dr Max Whisson, a retired medical specialist turned inventor, says he has designed a highly efficient wind turbine that can run a refrigeration system to cool air and condense moisture from it.

"The wind carries in the water and [provides] the power required to separate that water from the wind," says Whisson, who is based in Perth.

He says there is a huge amount of water in the atmosphere that is replaced every few hours. This means the whole world could just use water from the air without disrupting the environment.

Whisson says the system would even harvest significant amounts of water in areas with low humidity.

He says a 4 metre square device could extract an average 7500 litres of water a day.

In his design, moisture-laden air enters the system and is cooled by a drop in pressure behind the wind turbine blades, says Whisson.

The air then flows into a chamber containing refrigerated metal plates covered by a non-wettable surface that causes water droplets to run off immediately into a collection point.

Making water out of thin air (ABC News in Science)