This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/this-tower-pulls-drinking-water-out-of-thin-air-180950399/?no-ist

by ColdHawaiian • 12 years ago

147 83 12 years ago

Has anyone tested the long term viability? Contamination, dust, mildew, flies etc.? Seems like a good idea but I venture the water would need further processing. Still, looks like a better starting point than where many communities are now.

ColdHawaiian• 12 years ago

Yeah, I was thinking about whether or not bacteria and other harmful microorganisms could grow in the water that collected too. I suppose, if nothing else, it could be boiled before consumption.

stevewilhelm2• 12 years ago

In many impoverished areas, there is a high correlation between lack of clean drinking water and lack of fuel sources.

ghshephard6• 12 years ago

As long as the water is reasonably clear, just leaving it in a plastic bottle in the sun for a day or so will get the water safe enough to drink.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection

http://www.irinnews.org/report/79172/benin-sunshine-plastic-...

And this water is not ground water - so all of the many, many normal types of ground pollution are being avoided.

bigbugbag• 12 years ago

You're supposed not to drink water from a plastic bottle which has been exposed for some time to the sun.

tonylemesmer2• 12 years ago

I'm Sorry, I should have been more specific. I was referring to potential moss / buildup on the structure itself.

riffraff• 12 years ago

notice the design/idea is, AFAICT, from 2012

http://www.architectureandvision.com/projects/chronological/...

ghshephard6• 12 years ago

Something doesn't seen internally consistent in this article. We read about a device, that can be locally assembled, that, can draw up to 25 gallons of water a day (I would have been impressed with 1 gallon a day) - and, "In all, it costs about $500 to set up a tower...His team hopes to install two Warka Towers in Ethiopia by next year and is currently searching for investors who may be interested in scaling the water harvesting technology across the region. "

Why would "two Warka towers" be a target for a year, when, on the surface, reading this - it would make sense to go install a thousand of them and see how they played out over a year. If this device really could pull, even 10 gallons of water a day for $500 cost, it would have zero problem attracting funding on that kind of tiny pilot scale.

meric• 12 years ago

I think it takes more than just money to setup the towers. The article mentions maintenance is a big problem for imported solutions, so they'll need to teach locals on how to maintain/build the tower. There aren't too many people who knows enough to build such a tower, so they cannot simply spend $500 * 1000 to get towers for 100 villages, since they need to first teach people to build it and second teach people in each village to maintain it. Perhaps, the first year the target is more than just 2 towers, but learning how to make the tower easier to maintain as well as learning how best to 'sell' the tower to locals.

ghshephard6• 12 years ago

Everything in the article suggests that this is something that can be done locally:

"If the many failed development projects of the past 60 years have taught us anything,...it's that complicated, imported solutions do not work."

"inexpensive, easily-assembled structure that extracts gallons of fresh water from the air. "

"The structures, made from biodegradable materials, are easy to clean and can be erected without mechanical tools in less than a week.

And 1,000 towers would be on the scale of "learning how to make the tower easier to maintain as well as learning how best to 'sell' the tower to locals."

If this device was capable of pulling in more than 10/gallons of water a day for $500 capex (and cheaper at volume), I would expect to see millions of them installed across the african continent in just a few years.

Heck - I'd expect to see them installed across the North American continent as well. Some of the crazy stuff we used to do to try and get 5 gallons/water a day when I was growing up - I spent two solid months hand digging a well that barely managed to deliver that much water a day. A $500 "Water Tower" would have been awesome.

zhte415• 12 years ago

Making a physical product that may have to be tailored to varying specific requirements could be difficult, meric above mentioned technology / skill transfer where an assumed solution may not have an optimal effect, or be even be disastrous - I'm sure they're honing an experience set and training and maintenance manual.

Sewage works may be a tangential example. Many sewage treatment plants basically work by sifting heavy material, then using aerobic bacteria to break down dirty water, and anaerobic bacteria to break down the aerobic bacteria (resulting in manure slosh) [a heavily simplified version]. But each plant has varying PH and mineral levels, meaning optimal bacteria are often designed for specific plant locations, and the specialist knowledge required can be very deep.

I see nothing wrong with going it slow, and documenting carefully in a very hands-on way, any hiccup and both 'known unknowns' and 'unknown unknowns' that may be overlooked in a mass roll-out.

[Edit: typo]

dfc3• 12 years ago

honing an experience set

You are the first person to put those words together: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22honing+an+experience+set%...

msandford• 12 years ago

I think the main reason is because it's just two industrial designers with no connections to any of the NGOs necessary to get the $500k worth of build-money and probably another $500k to $1.5mm worth of "let's make this happen" money.

Look at the front page of the website it's posted on: http://www.architectureandvision.com/ Half of the stuff there is made-up concepts, not real actual things.

If we were seeing this on the water.org website then yes I would absolutely agree with you that the two units as a "goal" is ridiculous. But since it seems like they have no serious funding yet and plane tickets to Africa aren't exactly cheap I think two units is reasonable.

danmaz74• 12 years ago

This looks like a perfect idea for a kickstarter campaign, though...

davidw• 12 years ago

So does this one:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:LukeMoistureVaporator-MO...

The ones in the article look like they're cheaper, possible to construct with local materials, and importantly: more user friendly - you don't even need a droid that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators.

patchhill• 12 years ago

Are these not powered? How do these things overcome the laws of thermodynamics?

GlennS• 12 years ago

They are effectively solar powered, since they rely on a temperature difference.

stcredzero• 12 years ago

Ubiquitous electrical outlets cripple 1st worlder understanding of physics. Film at 11.

shadowmint3• 12 years ago

Here's a link that describes the technology behind it: http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/how-to-get-fresh-water-out-of...

...and one showing the structure in detail: http://www.architectureandvision.com/projects/chronological/...

TLDR: Great for pulling moisture out of the air if the air already has a really high moisture content. Pretty much useless in other circumstances.

bryanlarsen• 12 years ago

According to the article, it's temperature differential that's important. So it works in the desert, which has 50 degree swings between day and night. Many places with high moisture content have much smaller swings in temperature, so it might not work as well in the jungle.

clhodapp2• 12 years ago

Alternately, the article is incorrect/oversimplifying. It's pretty easy to see that it is at least oversimplifying with a simple thought experiment: Suppose we were to place a Warka Tower in an airtight with a humidity of 0% (no water in the air) and with an air temperature of 120°F. Then suppose we were to drop the chamber temperature to 40°F. By all accounts, this is a huge change in temperature for a human-habitable region to undergo (an 80°F change), so the tower should produce a LOT of water. However, because the air in the chamber has so little water actually in it, very little water will actually be produced. Ultimately, what makes the tower work well is a large temperature change and a high humidity.

shadowmint3• 12 years ago

Not really; the desert temperature differential isn't really relevant afaik; it's just to drive the air down below the dew point to generate droplets. If there's already a high ambient moisture content in the air, I can't see why it wouldn't work. This is a just a structure to collect droplets, and there are plenty of those in the jungle.

zmguy• 12 years ago

I don't agree with not having local repairmen as being a real showstopper. Any new system requires training: fire building, hut building, brick making. They need to factor training into the roll out of the technology, and don't focus on training men, take the women and grandmothers, train them first. RE: The barefoot movement in India: http://www.ted.com/talks/bunker_roy Tell a mother she doesn't have to walk 6 hours for dirty water, she will learn to fix whatever is necessary given the right training and availability of tools/material.

midas0074• 12 years ago

Agreed, it's probably the opposite. Folks that are struggling out of necessary tend to have respectable DIY artisans that are very resourceful and creative in the truest sense of hacker. (When you don't have much, your ability to think of creative solutions based on what you have becomes very acute.)

linhat2• 12 years ago

Isn't the generated/collected water like condensed water free of any kind of salts etc. that would naturally occur in ground/drinking water, so shouldn't it be unsafe to drink large amounts of it (much like it is unsafe to drink large amounts of salt/sea water due to the saline imbalance)?

I wonder how/if they address this?

dfc3• 12 years ago

  It is unsafe to drink sea water due to high salt content.
  Therefore, drinking water with no salt content is also unsafe.

I do not understand that reasoning.

DanBC2• 12 years ago

Ultra pure water will leach salts from the body. This is dangerous.

At least, that's what people suggest, I don't know if it's true.

taejo• 12 years ago

That reasoning is not present in the comment you're replying to (it says "like" where you've read "therefore")

sandy232• 12 years ago

Drinking water is supposed to be good health if the salt content is between 30 to 50 parts per million. If we speak about details the salt content present in water is supposed to be source of some minerals which you might not be able to get from food. It can also be supplemented with vitamin tablets but that would make distilled water not ideal drinking water.

sbierwagen• 12 years ago

The evidence is largely contradictory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DI_water#Health_effects_of_drin...

In any event, drinking deionized water doesn't appear to be instantly fatal. If the health impact is negative, then the effect size is pretty small.

caycep• 12 years ago

have faith in your GI system...it usually figures out what to absorb.

Crito• 12 years ago

The issue with deionized water isn't what your GI system will or will not absorb. The issue is that the water may absorb minerals and nutrients from you.

I have to imagine that this is easily combated if it proves to be a significant factor. Worse case scenario, now that you have water that doesn't make you violently ill, you have more energy to farm/eat nutrient rich foods?

jimrandomh• 12 years ago

Everyone needs to eat salt, and does. If there isn't any salt in your water, then you need slightly more salt in your food. But only very slightly more; drinking water is not very salty.

PavlovsCat• 12 years ago

Anyone know if anything became of this? The linked pdf 404's :/

http://www.gadgetnutz.com/2006/10/09/wind-traps-become-reali...

jusben1369• 12 years ago

Sort of odd that it wants to go negative on other efforts. Doesn't really add to the story but seems to be all about a few cheap shots.

davidgerard• 12 years ago

WARNING: AUTOPLAY VIDEO. Flagged.

stuaxo• 12 years ago

Another Tower Pulls Soup Out of Thick Air

jdkuepper• 12 years ago

The concept of air wells has been around for awhile, but it's good that they're able to keep the costs low and build it from local materials with local labor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_well_(condenser)

sandy232• 12 years ago

Not just Africa, there are many places in India mainly the tribal villages where the women walk for more than 3 kms to carry 10 litres of fresh water.

icefox• 12 years ago

Heck, places in the U.S. need water, why start in Ethiopia where the trial costs will be higher?

midas0074• 12 years ago

If a prototype has been validated, go big fast with multiple concurrent efforts.

The concerning detail is that the website lists this project as 2012. [0] Perhaps they were unable to get it working?

0 http://www.architectureandvision.com/projects/chronological/...

stevewilhelm2• 12 years ago

I am curious how a project like this, which has been around since July of 2012 [1], gets such an intense amount of media coverage all in a the last two weeks: Wired, Daily Mail, Smithonian, Engaget, Huffington Post, and now HN. [2]

[1] http://s831.us/1qr8eNO [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=WarkaWater

sitkack3• 12 years ago

Because of a PR push, nothing wrong with that.

joshdance• 12 years ago

Sounds great. Any evidence of this actually working?

DanBC2• 12 years ago

Not sure about this actual device but mesh that captures dew that works of temperature differential does work and isn't controversial.

Here's one good link pointing out the benefits and problems of fog harvesting.

http://www.oas.org/dsd/publications/unit/oea59e/ch12.htm

spiritplumber• 12 years ago

“Bless the Maker and His water. Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people. ”

midas0074• 12 years ago

http://www.architectureandvision.com/attachments/article/492...

jotm• 12 years ago

This is a nice read on the subject: http://www.calvin.edu/academic/engineering/2011-12-team5/dow...

aaron6952• 12 years ago

I think there's probably some big issues with this article.

For $500 for 24+ Gallons a day even from a commercial perspective it'd have value in first world city settings during droughts for pretty gardens etc.

fit2rule• 12 years ago

Seems like something that just needs to be 100% open source, with designs freely available to the public. If it works so well, it really ought to be utterly free to construct, since it will have such a significant impact on peoples lives to be able to have such access to fresh water.

So whats the problem here? Isn't this science free, already?

This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

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