Rich in oil but lacking clean water, the United Arab Emirates is testing a solar-powered project to create “endless” quantities of drinking water out of nothing but air.
A modified shipping crate is to be the world’s first carbon-neutral “water generator” when it is installed in a futuristic eco-city next to Abu Dhabi’s main airport in October. It produces water from air by condensing water molecules below “dew point”.
Housed in a standard shipping container, a bank of 20 “hyper-dehumidifiers” can produce 6,700 litres of fresh water when local conditions are at 26C and 60 per cent humidity, or more if conditions allow.
Once filtered and mineralised within the same system the condensed water is safe for bottling or drinking, according to its American developers, Aquovum. It hopes to bring an “infinite” supply to places struck by drought.
An estimated 2.2 billion people around the world lack access to safe and clean drinking water.
Advertisement
Like many water-stressed countries across the Middle East, the UAE has shrinking ground water tables and relies heavily on desalinated seawater for agricultural and industrial use. Much of the population drinks bottled water, imported at great cost from abroad.
Robert Wood, Aquovum’s chief technological officer, said a transportable solar-powered system offered the prospect of limitless supplies of clean drinking water that could be created in semi-arid to humid climates.
“Almost shockingly, being that the UAE is one of the water-stressed areas in the world, it has adequate temperature and humidity to provide an infinite supply of water through dehumidification,” he told The Times.
“At times there are periods of immense fog in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and through its coastal region and weather patterns the humidity ranges between 60-90 per cent.
“Unclean water is a terrible problem and the worst part is that in theory it’s solvable, simply by capturing moisture in the air. This technology is going to be simple, sustainable and scalable.”
Advertisement
The generator is being completed in Madison, Wisconsin, before it will be transported to Masdar City, a low-carbon community in Abu Dhabi that is already home to one of the world’s largest solar farms.
Aquovum claims that its patented system is more efficient than other condensing methods, which emulate air conditioners and often require a great deal of energy. Each unit has a fan that takes in filtered, humid air before forcing it over multiple cooling coils, where the water condenses like droplets on a cold glass. It then collects the resulting water before it can run off, cleans it with ozone and ultraviolet light, and adds minerals.
The water is free from chemical contaminants and has a “distinctive pleasant taste”, Aquovum said.
In a year-long trial, announced yesterday, the generator is expected to produce water for guests at Khalifa University of Science and Technology, as well as irrigation for a local park.
Professor Chris Sansom, head of the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems at Cranfield University, described the UAE trial as “very interesting”. He said: “There are a lot of people working on how to help water-stressed countries of the world, particularly in the Middle East and the Gulf. But conventional desalination requires massive amounts of power, and technology to boil and recondense sea water is still at an early stage. This is one of the three techniques that will make a very big difference.”
