Friday, March 21, 2014

Engineers Create Water from Humid Air

There are two amazing technologies being used in the coastal deserts of Peru to harvest water from the atmosphere. One is a filtration system and the other is a "web."  I think that engineers are amazing. They've been able to bring fresh water to some Peruvian desert communities.

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
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.

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I'm a simple guy who enjoys the simple things in life, especially our dogs. I volunteer for dog rescues, enjoy exercising, blogging, politics, helping friends and neighbors, participating in ghost investigations, coffee, weather, superheroes, comic books, mystery novels, traveling, 70s and 80s music, classic country music,writing books on ghosts and spirits, cooking simply and keeping in shape. You'll find tidbits of all of these things on this blog and more. EMAIL me at Rgutro@gmail.com - Rob

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