Or, I could send you a couple liters of freeze-dried water.
Seriously, it is an interesting concept. The biggest weakness might be the need for a reliable fan - would one of those long-lived fans like we have in computers work? How would it be powered? (Of course, if Edison had taken counsel of naysayers, we'd all still be sitting around in the dark, wishing we had something entertaining to do.
Last week was somewhere around my 50th hiking trip to the desert. At least once per trips, someone notices the dew that shows up on plants every morning, no matter the relative humidity. It's amazing....every tiny creature gets a drink. A self replenishing water bottle would be wonderful! But, having messed with solar stills, (very inefficient) I wonder how much air would have to be moved to get that 1-3 liters a day. The energy for that fan must come from somewhere. Hope they figure it out!
In dry climates, it would have to be one heck of a fan with a big condensation surface. Think of it this way...your home air conditioner condenses a few gallons of water every day, but with the help of a big evaporator coil, a large high volume fan, and the help of a huge temperature differential from compressed/evaporated refrigerant. In short, it takes a lot of horsepower to get water to condense at any volume. If someone can figure out how to get this to happen with a tiny DC fan, hats off to them....I'd be a customer. In the desert, things are bone dry by sunrise. I'd figure the military would come up with this tech long ago, but no. What a lifesaver this would be.
Registered: 02/07/07
Posts: 3917
Loc: Ozark Mountains in SW Missouri
It would have to be pretty cheap and efficient for their market, that's for sure.
The A/C comparison is not quite fair maybe, but I certainly get the gist of what you're saying.
This seems to be a more passive approach, so it may not be that it takes a lot of moving air, it may instead take a lot of surface area of material with just a little air moving over it. That's just a guess though.
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