This week’s selection is Water from Air by Julika Schwarz and Louisa Graupe.
This design is a project by students Julika Schwarz and Louisa Graupe of the Münster University of Applied Sciences, Department of Design. It’s designed to address the increasingly serious global water shortage. Fresh water is becoming less available in many areas due to climate change, and innovative ideas to counteract that issue are becoming more important.
The project explains the goals of the design:
“Water from Air is designed as a mobile water producer and storage unit that can be used flexibly in private households, regardless of geographical and social circumstances— a practical solution and application option for people all over the world. The concept initially enables the production of 6 litres of drinking water per day and is scalable for the future. The prototype was largely produced using 3D printing.”
How does it work? It’s quite simple: the system is composed of two parts: the upper chamber is used to condense water, and the bottom is the collector.
The process is to open the top to let in some ambient air for an hour. Then that chamber is sealed, and light from the sun heats it up for an hour, and that causes water to condense on the sides of the upper chamber. The condensation step takes one hour. A valve can then be opened to drain the newly collected water into the lower chamber. After several of these two-hour cycles, you will have an amount of water in the container.
The interesting part is that the collected water is perfectly fresh: because it is generated by evaporation — basically distillation— it is completely pure. No additives, no pollution, no bacteria. It’s completely safe to drink immediately.
Is Water from Air ready for you to print? Not quite yet. Schwarz explains:
“This is a concept and not a product that is ready for the market. The material used is still undergoing research and patenting, so it is not yet commercially available. Our goal was to illustrate the potential of this novel material through a user-friendly and self-sufficient product design – something that previously only existed in complex laboratory setups. Please note that the 3D printing data and other development documents are not publicly available, as this is not an open-source project! We ask that you do not imitate or copy the prototype, as we own the copyright to our bachelor’s project.”
So we will have to wait a bit for the ability to print these ourselves.
Via Behance
