Atmospheric Water Generation – Terrascope Mission 2021

Atmospheric water generation is a technique that extracts water from humid ambient air through condensation. Since these machines extract water from air, people who drink this water do not risk arsenic or salt contamination in their water. Such devices require considerable amounts of electricity to run and would therefore be most readily implemented in urban environments such as Dhaka, where the technology would be able to serve more people for the same cost. This technology would be presented to the Bangladeshi people as an alternative to their current methods of water collection such as tube wells and ponds, where families often send children to gather the necessary water for the day.

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Figure 1. Atmospheric Water Generator. Source: Times of Israel^[3]

Atmospheric water generators make water by cooling water vapor in the air and condensing it into liquid water. This process requires specific machinery, yet these expensive devices have notable benefits. There are various generators on the market. A company called WaterGen claims to have the most energy-efficient water extraction methods equating to about 10 cents per gallon at Bangladesh energy prices.^[1] These units themselves are expensive, costing around $30,000 for a medium-scale version. However, their capability speaks for its cost. They have a 200 L reservoir and can produce 650 L per day.^[2] For reference, the average man requires 4 L of water per day while the average woman requires 3 L. Thus, a single unit would be able to fully meet the daily drinking water needs of about 200 people.

Of course there are other options on the market, such as SkyH20, which is a larger scale option that can produce 10,500 L of water per day and “capital costs in most locations is less than forward/reverse osmosis (RO) including desalination and distillation.”^[4] These solutions are effective when they can serve large, densely packed communities, as their scalability is low. In order to serve Bangladesh’s population of around 160 million, it would take around 800,000 WaterGen generators, or 56,000 SkyH20 Generators.

Of course, this is not an ideal or economically feasible way to provide clean water to all of Bangladesh. Yet, it may work as an additional method of water production in areas with high population density where it can be accessible to a large amount of people. Considering that atmospheric water generators are costly, the best route would be to negotiate with the companies that make them in order to get bulk discounts and service multiple communities. In order to pay for these, there will have to be communal support in order to convince the government to invest in these products. This can be fostered with campaigns detailing the importance of drinking clean water and avoiding contaminants.

By Alejandro Miranda

References

Mosbergen, D., (2016) Why an Israeli Company is Sucking Water from the Sky. Huffington Post.
(2017) Gen 350g medium scale atmospheric water generator. WaterGen. Retrieved from http://water-gen.com/products/water-from-air/gen-350g-medium-scale-atmospheric-water-generator/
(2017) Retrieved from https://www.timesofisrael.com/extracting-water-from-air-israeli-firm-looks-to-quench-global-thirst/
(2017) Products. SkyH20. Retrieved from http://skyh2oinc.com/products-2/