Self-filling water bottle harvests drinking water from the air.
A new self-filling water bottle has
been invented that can not only serve as a nifty device for long bike tours and
races, but could also offer a new method of fresh water collection in parts of
the world where groundwater sources are hard to come by.
Developed by industrial designer
Kristof Retezar from Austria’s University of Applied Arts, the new device -
called the ‘Fontus’ - works best in humid weather, which allows it to condense
the moisture in the air into safe, fresh drinking water. Experiments have shown
that under the right weather conditions, it can produce 0.5 Litres of water in
just under an hour.
Retezar explains
how it works:
In order to achieve condensation, one must cool hot, humid air
down. The device has a small cooler installed in its centre called Peltier
Element. This cooler is divided in two: When powered by electricity, the upper
side cools down and the bottom side gets hot. The more you cool the hot side
down, the colder the upper side will get. Consequently, these two sides are separated
and isolated from each other.
The air enters the bottom chamber at a high speed when
moving forward with the bike and cools the hot side down. Moreover, when the
air enters the upper chamber it is stopped by little walls perforated
non-linearly, reducing its speed in order to give the air the needed time to
lose its water molecules.
Once the water molecules have been extracted, the
droplets flow through a pipe and accumulate in a bottle. This bottle can be
easily loosened from its holder for drinking, and any kind of PET 0.5 L bottle
will fit.
The Fontus has been entered into the James Dyson Award, which is an annual,
international design competition, and a win could provide Retezar with the
capital to jettison his design to the market.
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