These teams are competing to create devices that can extract water from thin air
Clean water is a necessity, but as recent events in Cape Town have shown, securing it isn't so easy.
That looming challenge has led to a competition called the Water Abundance XPRIZE. It's getting teams to build technology which can extract a minimum of 2,000 litres of water per day from the atmosphere, using 100 percent renewable energy, at a cost of two cents a litre.
One of the five finalists is Behdad Moghtaderi from Australia's University of Newcastle, whose team has developed a process which heats the air first, before cooling it.
"We went into the competition wanting to keep the technology as simple as possible to ensure it would have worldwide applications, especially for developing countries," Moghtaderi said in a statement.
"Atmospheric water generators are usually based on refrigeration cycles that cool the air to below the dew point, the point at which condensation will form. We’re turning that idea on its head. Our process is based on heating the air, not cooling.
"The first step is to absorb water at night using a desiccant. Then we use solar energy during the day to produce hot, humid air that can then be cooled. The hotter the air, the more water it’s going to hold and then by cooling that hot air, we get water back."
Other entrants include JMCC Wing from Hawaii, which uses a high-efficiency wind turbine to power a commercial atmospheric water generator.
Then there's Chicago's Skydra, where there's not much information much apart from claiming they have a "hybrid solution that utilizes both natural and engineered systems to condense water out of the air."
India's Uravu have also kept mum about their solution, but say they have an "off-grid water from air device, spinning together the magic of material sciences and solar thermal energy."
Finally, a collaboration between the UK's Veragon and ThinAir is developing a material which "rapidly enhances the process of water condensation."
Whittled down from 98 entrants, each finalist will receive a $250,000 prize for getting this far. Their devices be put through their paces in the second round of testing in July, and the winner will receive a $1.5 million prize.
Topics Social Good
