Spanish engineers extract drinking water from thin air - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2021, 07:55:14 pm
content: I found this article but in the I newspaper.Inews by Mariano Valladolid and Jon Nazca in SevilleQuoteArticle with pictures and in attachments:https://www.reuters.com/technology/spanish-engineers-extract-drinking-water-thin-air-2021-08-04/Quotehttp://aquaer.com/en/pressQuoteSo this has been around for 30 years I never heard of it and I still can't find much more details about it other than it uses electricity and the effect is similar to a dehumidifier and some pictures.It just looks like a massive dehumidifier to me.I was going to put this under dodgy technology but I am not sure (if the facts are real) but please do move it if you think it is dodgy and they turn out to be false.In Spain with a lot of sun maybe solar panels are involved and pay for the electricity consumption of this thing.What do you think?

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2021, 08:15:15 pm
content: Quote from: MrMobodies on August 05, 2021, 07:55:14 pmMe too. Unfortunately its output is going to be heavily dependent on atmospheric humidity level. That's got to be a significant issue in arid areas.P.S. I've no idea how the efficiency of a heat-pump compares to a desalination plant - I know those are quite power hungry.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2021, 11:17:33 pm
content: Nothing new:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_water_generatorAnd, we've seen a few startups the last few years trying to do just that. Dunno if any of them still exists.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2021, 11:44:28 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on August 05, 2021, 08:15:15 pmThe Spectra marine reverse-osmosis watermaker I have on my sailboat uses 15 Wh to deliver 1 gallon of fresh water (18A @ 12V, 14 GPH). It uses a "Clark" high-pressure pump which is highly efficient. I'm pretty sure that a heat-pump dehumidifier won't deliver nearly the water per Watt-hour, but of course for reverse-osmosis you do need a source of water.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 06:29:15 am
content: Didn't we do this one already? Waterseer anyone?Doable, but a power and resource hog, with a host of issues.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 08:52:07 am
content: The most obvious issue is that in humid climates, there is water available anyway. True lack of water comes with long dry seasons in desert-like areas which means RH is easily in some 10% range and extracting significant amounts of water requires processing large amounts of air and spending a lot of energy doing that.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 09:54:40 am
content: There are areas with high humidity and low rainfall. Fog deserts are an example. According to Wikipedia there's one in Namibia, which explains why this dehumidifier does well there.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_desertYes, this is nothing new. High temperatures normally aren't too much of an issue, since hot air can hold more moisture.

author: dzseki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 10:01:12 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on August 06, 2021, 08:52:07 amWell, in a desert at least you can rely on sunshine so pairing this with some solar panels would ease on that.

author: Just_another_Dave
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 10:44:46 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on August 06, 2021, 08:52:07 amIn the Mediterranean coast there are regions with high humidity and low water resources, so I suppose that it could be applied in those kind of places. However, energy consumption might be a more critical factor as it needs to be more efficient than desalinization plants while producing enough water to be better than plants based on heating water with solar radiation and condensing it

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 11:17:11 am
content: Quote from: Just_another_Dave on August 06, 2021, 10:44:46 amMost Mediterranean climates also have abundant rainfall in winter, which can be stored for use in the dry summer,

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 11:38:29 am
content: Yes, but in the Namib desert you are going to have much better results simply using a fog collector, which requires absolutely no power to operate, as it relies on the cold of night to condense the fog in the air onto fine mesh cloth spread out to get maximum wind area, and this then wicks down to the bottom where it is collected in open troughs that lead to a collector cistern, giving a reliable source of water. Not too effective away from the coast and the moisture laden air off the ocean, but enough to make it usable.The condensing from the air does not work though where you have low humidity, like in almost every other desert, where the humidity in the air is very low to begin with, and thus no matter how good your refrigeration circuit is, you have very little to start with in the first place, and thus need o cool massive amounts of air, to get a small amount of water out.

author: Miyuki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 03:55:39 pm
content: Another inverter inventing Perpetuum mobile

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 04:11:40 pm
content: Dehumidifiers don't really produce drinking water. They extract water so slowly its biologically really iffy by the time you have a pot full. It would need sterilising. Is is low in minerals, though. We used to use it for things like our clothes iron, to avoid lime scale build up. Who are these people in places with no water but lots of energy? Is this a secret marketing campaign for solar panel and heat pump makers?

author: Sal Ammoniac
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 04:30:53 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on August 06, 2021, 04:11:40 pmHow do you define slowly? The dehumidifier in my laundry room generates about two gallons a water in a few hours in the winter (the only time of year that I need to use it). The water it generates is very pure and doesn't need sterilization to drink (I know because I cultured the water and bacterial counts were lower than the control (tap water)).I wouldn't consider this method to be a viable source of drinking water because it uses a lot of electricity to generate the water it does.Perhaps we need vaporators like the one Luke Skywalker used to maintain:

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 05:05:33 pm
content: Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on August 06, 2021, 04:30:53 pmWe used to take 20 or 30 litres a day out of the air in our old apartment, and that continued every day for most of the year. When we washed clothes the water went up by however much was in the clothes. So, there was quite a lot of water available. However, that's in a place where anything below 90% RH is a dry day. Most places use as much electricity to extract maybe a glass or two a day. Unless you are really strict about cleaning everything out every couple of glassfuls things get biologically nasty quite quickly. The dust build up in the water can be quite rapid, giving excellent sites for biology to get a foothold. If they have a system with an automated cleaning system maybe it would be OK. Dehumidifiers I've used need a lot of work if you care about the quality of the extracted water.

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 05:15:34 pm
content: Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on August 06, 2021, 04:30:53 pmThen you have to make sure you have the droids that speak the vaporators' binary language. Bonus if they can play bocce with your old Italian neighbors.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 06:19:07 pm
content: Water extracted from the air can taste funny. When I thaw ice from my freezer it tasted weird and someone on the TV show The Dragon's Den, tried to secure investment for a dehumidifier-based water cooler, but failed because the Dragons told them it tasted weird. I think the gasses dissolved from the air such as CO2and lack of salts, normally present in tap water, make it taste strange.

author: Johnny10
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2021, 08:21:10 pm
content: That link looks a lot like click bait for all the advertisements that pop up as you scroll down article.So it's a big air conditioner/dehumidifier so what?

author: farlander762
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2021, 12:40:47 am
content: I've seen window unit air conditioners make 10 gallons per day. Big ships get some of their water from the AC system.My mom was kind of a prepper. She told me to go buy a dehumidifier for emergency water (hurricanes and other short-term events). I told her a window unit made water and left a cool room for the same electrical spend as a dehumidifier. My dad wouldn't let her buy a window unit

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2021, 03:29:54 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on August 06, 2021, 06:19:07 pmDistilled water also tastes strange to those accustomed to "impure" water.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2021, 06:29:17 am
content: Er, DUH - water is EVERYWHERE. I recall the marvellous, late Jack Absolom extracting water from plants in the Australian bush, merely by wrapping transparent plastic sacks around branches and tying the neck, and leaving them for an hour or so. Dear friends, it's BASIC physics, and is called precipitation. Nothing new.