THE FILTRATION SYSTEM (video below) - The University of Engineering and Technology of Peru (UTEC) turned to ad agency Mayo DraftFCB and developed the idea of a "billboard" that would convert Lima's H2O-saturated air into potable water. And then they actually built one. There are five devices that work together as the billboard's inverse osmosis filtration system and produces around 100 liters of water a day (about 26 gallons) from nothing more than humidity, a basic filtration system and a little gravitational ingenuity. It is powered by electricity.(SEE VIDEO BELOW)
There's another related technology also working in Peru that does the same thing.
FOG CATCHER WEBS -
Fog Catchers Bring Water to Parched Villages
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| Fog catchers in Peru |
German conservationists and biologists Kai Tiedemann and Anne Lummerich, who run Alimón, a small nonprofit that supports Latin American development designed a fog collector, with multiple layers of netting to better catch a shifting wind, which they erected in 2007. The new design has collected more than 600 gallons (2,271 liters) in a day without taking up any more space than the original nets. FULL STORY in National Geographic:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090709-fog-catchers-peru-water-missions/
VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWwii1dX4v8
FYI - Lima is the largest city in Peru and the fifth largest in all of the Americas, with some 7.6 million people (closer to 9 million when you factor in the surrounding metro area). Because it sits along the southern Pacific Ocean, the humidity in the city averages 83% (it's actually closer to 100% in the mornings). But Lima is also part of what's called a coastal desert: It lies at the northern edge of the Atacama, the driest desert in the world, meaning the city sees perhaps half an inch of precipitation annually (Lima is the second largest desert city in the world after Cairo). Lima thus depends on drainage from the Andes as well as runoff from glacier melt — both sources on the decline because of climate change.
