Water is the source of all things. Lao Tzu once said in the Tao Te Ching that “the highest good is like water”. However, the scarcity of water resources and serious pollution are an imminent global problem.
According to the World Health Organization/UNICEF joint monitoring report, the world’s water crisis is getting worse, “about one-third of the world’s population does not have access to adequate sanitation resources, and one-tenth of the world does not have enough safe drinking water. Water resources.”
How to obtain enough safe drinking water has therefore become an important topic for many scientists to study tirelessly.
Recently, researchers at X Labs, Google’s parent company Alphabet, developed a model. They designed a hypothetical device called an “atmospheric water harvester” (AWH), which can simulate conditions such as air temperature, light, and humidity. Extract clean drinking water directly from the air.
The relevant research results were published in the journal Nature on October 27. The paper is titled “Global Potential for Harvesting Drinking Water from the Air Using Solar Energy”, with Philip Schmelzler from Google X Labs as the corresponding author.
Here we will focus on the Google X Lab, which is also known as the “Moon Landing Factory”. It was established in 2010 and has gathered a large number of researchers with creative ideas. They are committed to solving major challenges outside Google’s core business. mission, often with creative and practical solutions.
The AWH device this time was developed by a project team named “Hydrating Everyone” (H2E for short) in the Google X lab.
Talking about the project, Google X Labs said, “The H2E team is a small interdisciplinary team of scientists, development specialists, engineers, geospatial analysts, user researchers and industrial designers who have long been interested in acquiring The challenge of cleaning water is full of enthusiasm.”
So how exactly does the AWH device “create something out of nothing” to extract water from the air?
In fact, the internal logic of AWH is not as complicated as we think, and the water resources it extracts from the air are not generated out of thin air. It is understood that the device is similar to a solar panel equipped with a fan, which can draw in air, and after a series of processes such as heating and condensation, it naturally generates safe and clean drinking water.
One might question that this approach does not actually address water scarcity, but instead discusses conditions such as how much energy is required to extract water and the potential energy generated through solar panels at different relative humidity levels. Simply put, it’s moving a problem from one place to another.
As it is, the model suite includes an impact analysis on the geographic ‘downstream’ area of any potential water field. While this technology may be beneficial locally, if deployed indiscriminately in large numbers, it could alter regional air quality, air flow, weather patterns and water distribution.
However, compared with the common water intake methods such as desalination, the AWH device is obviously more convenient and effective. This is good news for the approximately 2.2 billion people around the world who face challenges in accessing safe drinking water.
In addition, the most significant advantage of AWH is that it can greatly reduce the cost of water abstraction. It is understood that if the model is finally realized, it will allow households to produce their own water instead of relying on basic facilities such as water plants built by the government or the community, which means that safe drinking water can even become a standard in the future, that is, everyone has access to water. Affordable.
Experts believe that this kind of thinking can be the basis for a large, sustainable enterprise.
It is worth mentioning that water extraction from air is not a novel proposition. As early as the 1990s, a device that imitated spider webs to extract water from mist was born, but the water extraction rate was not ideal. In addition, there are also the use of hydrophilic and hydrophobic materials to draw water, the use of temperature difference to condense into water, the use of salt solution to draw water, refrigeration condensation, etc., which are all common ways to draw water from the air.
However, none of them are the best options. Wang Jianhua, a member of the party committee and vice president of the China Academy of Water Resources and Hydropower Sciences, once said, “The most important thing is that the technology of water intake from air is not mature, and its input and output are seriously disproportionate.”
One might question that this approach does not actually address water scarcity, but instead discusses conditions such as how much energy is required to extract water and the potential energy generated through solar panels at different relative humidity levels. Simply put, it’s moving a problem from one place to another.
As it is, the model suite includes an impact analysis on the geographic ‘downstream’ area of any potential water field. While this technology may be beneficial locally, if deployed indiscriminately in large numbers, it could alter regional air quality, air flow, weather patterns and water distribution.
However, compared with the common water intake methods such as desalination, the AWH device is obviously more convenient and effective. This is good news for the approximately 2.2 billion people around the world who face challenges in accessing safe drinking water.
In addition, the most significant advantage of AWH is that it can greatly reduce the cost of water abstraction. It is understood that if the model is finally realized, it will allow households to produce their own water instead of relying on basic facilities such as water plants built by the government or the community, which means that safe drinking water can even become a standard in the future, that is, everyone has access to water. Affordable.
Experts believe that this kind of thinking can be the basis for a large, sustainable enterprise.
It is worth mentioning that water extraction from air is not a novel proposition. As early as the 1990s, a device that imitated spider webs to extract water from mist was born, but the water extraction rate was not ideal. In addition, there are also the use of hydrophilic and hydrophobic materials to draw water, the use of temperature difference to condense into water, the use of salt solution to draw water, refrigeration condensation, etc., which are all common ways to draw water from the air.
However, none of them are the best choices. Wang Jianhua, a member of the party committee and vice president of the China Academy of Water Resources and Hydropower Sciences, once said, “The most important thing is that the technology of water intake from air is not mature, and its input and output are seriously disproportionate.”
Besides air abstraction, solar steam power generation and seawater desalination are considered as one of the most important technologies to solve the increasingly pressing global water scarcity due to the ability to directly use solar energy to produce desalinated water with minimal carbon footprint. But unfortunately, the technology can only work efficiently with the help of concentrators and thermal insulation under limited water volume, and it cannot be applied on a large scale.
In weighing the issue, Google X Labs said, “Access to drinking water is often hindered by a diverse set of complex factors and structural challenges across locations, including access to existing water resources, local community infrastructure, governance issues, and more. That’s why, in many places, piped water infrastructure may still be decades away.”
Based on this, AWH is planning to provide a cheaper and more efficient way to access clean water as a new portable air intake device. According to the research team, it can even produce 5 liters of water per day if it operates continuously during the day when the humidity and light are suitable. This means that AWH, once a reality, will have a positive impact on alleviating global water scarcity.
