{"id":4232,"date":"2015-02-03T16:32:32","date_gmt":"2015-02-03T11:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/?p=4232"},"modified":"2015-02-03T16:32:32","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T11:32:32","slug":"this-tower-pulls-drinking-water-out-of-thin-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/?p=4232","title":{"rendered":"This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

In some parts of Ethiopia, finding potable water is a six-hour journey.<\/em><\/p>\n

People in the region\u00a0spend\u00a040 billion hours a year\u00a0trying to find and collect water, says a group called the Water Project.\u00a0And even when they find it, the water is often not safe, collected from ponds or lakes\u00a0teeming with\u00a0infectious bacteria, contaminated with animal waste or other harmful substances.<\/p>\n

\"warka_water\"<\/a>

Warka Water towers are designed to take advantage of condensation. (Architecture and Vision )<\/p><\/div>\n

The\u00a0water scarcity issue\u2014which affects\u00a0nearly 1 billion people\u00a0in\u00a0Africa alone\u2014has drawn the attention of\u00a0big-name philanthropists like actor and Water.org co-founder Matt Damon and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who, through their respective nonprofits, have poured millions of dollars into research and\u00a0solutions, coming up with things like\u00a0a\u00a0system that converts\u00a0toilet water to drinking water\u00a0and a “Re-invent the Toilet Challenge,”\u00a0among others.<\/p>\n

Critics, however, have their\u00a0doubts about\u00a0integrating\u00a0such\u00a0complex technologies\u00a0in remote villages that don’t even have access to a local repairman. Costs and maintenance could render many of these ideas impractical.<\/p>\n

“If the many failed development projects of the past 60 years have taught us anything,”\u00a0wrote one critic,\u00a0Toilets for People\u00a0founder Jason Kasshe, in a\u00a0New York Times\u00a0editorial,\u00a0“it’s that complicated, imported solutions do not work.”<\/p>\n

Other low-tech inventions, like this\u00a0life straw, aren’t as complicated, but still rely on users to find\u00a0a water source.<\/p>\n

It was\u00a0this dilemma\u2014supplying drinking water\u00a0in a\u00a0way\u00a0that’s both practical and convenient\u2014that served as the impetus for a new product called\u00a0Warka Water, an inexpensive, easily-assembled structure that extracts gallons of fresh water from the air.<\/p>\n

The invention from\u00a0Arturo Vittori, an\u00a0industrial designer, and his colleague Andreas Vogler\u00a0doesn’t involve complicated\u00a0gadgetry or feats of engineering, but instead\u00a0relies on\u00a0basic elements like shape\u00a0and\u00a0material\u00a0and the ways in which they\u00a0work\u00a0together.<\/p>\n

At first glance, the 30-foot-tall,\u00a0vase-shaped towers, named after a fig tree native to Ethiopia, have the look and feel of a showy art installation. But\u00a0every\u00a0detail, from carefully-placed curves\u00a0to unique\u00a0materials, has a functional purpose.<\/p>\n

The rigid outer housing of each tower is comprised of lightweight and elastic\u00a0juncus\u00a0stalks,\u00a0woven in a pattern that offers\u00a0stability in the face of strong wind gusts while still\u00a0allowing\u00a0air to\u00a0flow through. A\u00a0mesh\u00a0net\u00a0made of\u00a0nylon or \u00a0polypropylene, which\u00a0calls to mind\u00a0a large\u00a0Chinese lantern,\u00a0hangs inside,\u00a0collecting\u00a0droplets of dew that form along the surface. As cold air condenses, the droplets\u00a0roll down into\u00a0a container at the bottom of the tower. The water in the container then passes through a\u00a0tube that functions as a faucet, carrying the water to those waiting on the ground.<\/p>\n

Using mesh to facilitate clean drinking water isn’t an entirely new concept. A few years back, an MIT student designed a fog-harvesting device with the material.\u00a0But Vittori’s invention yields more water, at a lower cost, than some other concepts that came before it.<\/p>\n

“[In Ethiopia],\u00a0public infrastructures do not exist and building [something like]\u00a0a well is not easy,”\u00a0Vittori\u00a0says\u00a0of the country.\u00a0“To find water, you need to drill in the ground very deep, often as much as 1,600 feet.\u00a0 So it’s technically difficult and expensive. Moreover, pumps need electricity to run as well as access to spare parts in case the pump breaks down.”<\/p>\n

So how would Warka Water’s low-tech design hold up in remote sub-Saharan villages? Internal field tests\u00a0have shown\u00a0that one Warka Water tower can supply more than 25 gallons of water throughout the course of a day, Vittori claims. He says because the most important factor in collecting condensation is the difference in temperature between nightfall and daybreak,\u00a0the towers are proving successful even in the desert, where temperatures, in that time, can differ\u00a0as much as 50 degrees Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n

The structures,\u00a0made from biodegradable materials, are easy to clean and can be erected without mechanical tools in less than a week. Plus, he says, “once locals have the necessary know-how, they will be able to teach other\u00a0villages and communities to build\u00a0the Warka.”<\/p>\n

In all, it costs about $500\u00a0to set up a tower\u2014less than a quarter of the cost of something like the Gates toilet, which costs about $2,200 to install and\u00a0more to maintain. If the tower is mass produced, the price would be even lower, Vittori says.\u00a0His team hopes to\u00a0install\u00a0two Warka Towers\u00a0in Ethiopia by next year and is currently searching for investors who may be interested in scaling the water harvesting technology across the region.<\/p>\n

“It’s not just illnesses that we’re trying to address. Many Ethiopian children from rural villages spend several hours every day to fetch water, time they could invest for more productive activities and education,” he says. “If we can give people something that lets\u00a0them be\u00a0more independent, they can free themselves from this cycle.”<\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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