This
Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air
Who
needs hi-tech? This is basic physics and works like a charm. Kind of
cool-looking, too. Fascinating.
Sorry,
can’t recall how I got to this article. ~ BP
Designer Arturo Vittori says his invention can provide
remote villages with more than 25 gallons of clean drinking water per day
April
8, 2014
People
in the region spend 40
billion hours a year trying to find and collect water, says a group called the
Water Project. And even when they find it, the water is often not safe,
collected from ponds or lakes teeming with infectious bacteria,
contaminated with animal waste or other harmful substances.
The water
scarcity issue—which affects nearly 1 billion people in Africa
alone—has drawn the attention of big-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 solutions, coming up with things like a system
that converts toilet water to drinking water and a “Re-invent
the Toilet Challenge,” among others.
Critics,
however, have their doubts about integrating such complex
technologies in remote villages that don’t even have access to a local
repairman. Costs and maintenance could render many of these ideas impractical.
“If
the many failed development projects of the past 60 years have taught us
anything,” wrote one critic, Toilets
for People founder
Jason Kasshe, in a New
York Times editorial, “it’s that complicated, imported
solutions do not work.”
Other
low-tech inventions, like this life
straw,
aren’t as complicated, but still rely on users to find a water source.
It
was this dilemma—supplying drinking water in a way that’s
both practical and convenient—that served as the impetus for a new product
called Warka
Water,
an inexpensive, easily-assembled structure that extracts gallons of fresh water
from the air.
The
invention from Arturo Vittori, an industrial designer, and his
colleague Andreas Vogler doesn’t involve complicated gadgetry or
feats of engineering, but instead relies on basic elements like
shape and material and the ways in which
they work together.
At
first glance, the 30-foot-tall, vase-shaped towers, named after a fig tree
native to Ethiopia, have the look and feel of a showy art installation.
But every detail, from carefully-placed curves to
unique materials, has a functional purpose.
The
rigid outer housing of each tower is comprised of lightweight and elastic juncus stalks, woven in a pattern that
offers stability in the face of strong wind gusts while
still allowing air to flow through.
A mesh net made of nylon or polypropylene,
which calls to mind a large Chinese lantern, hangs
inside, collecting droplets of dew that form along the surface. As
cold air condenses, the droplets roll down into a container at the
bottom of the tower. The water in the container then passes through a tube
that functions as a faucet, carrying the water to those waiting on the ground.
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. But Vittori’s
invention yields more water, at a lower cost, than some other concepts that
came before it.
“[In
Ethiopia], public infrastructures do not exist and building [something
like] a well is not easy,” Vittori says of the country. “To
find water, you need to drill in the ground very deep, often as much as 1,600
feet. 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.”
So
how would Warka Water’s low-tech design hold up in remote sub-Saharan villages?
Internal field tests have shown that 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, the towers are
proving successful even in the desert, where temperatures, in that time, can
differ as much as 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
The
structures, made 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 villages and communities to build the Warka.”
In
all, it costs about $500 to set up a tower—less than a quarter of the cost
of something like the Gates toilet, which costs about $2,200 to install
and more to maintain. If the tower is mass produced, the price would be
even lower, Vittori says. 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.
“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 them be more independent, they can free
themselves from this cycle.“
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