This Spanish invention is supplying drinking water to various needy communities around the world.
Only 0.025% of the water on our planet is directly drinkable despite the fact that 72% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. Specifically, we are talking about 96.5% salt water compared to 3.5% fresh water, although a large part of the latter is frozen and has not passed the relevant controls for human consumption.
And while drinking water is as simple as turning on the tap at home, it is not so in certain communities and countries, many in Africa, with peoples that cannot count on this basic resource as water to drink it.
So when someone is capable of inventing a machine that draws drinking water “out of nowhere”, specifically the humidity of the air, the truth is that it could be classified as one of the great inventions of recent years, and the best of all, is that this machine exists, and has been manufactured by Spaniards.
The story, collected in Reuters, points out that a Spanish company has been able to design a system to extract drinking water from scratch and thus supply different regions of the world, especially those African regions that do not have this resource.
The culprit of this great invention is Enrique Veiga, an 82-year-old Galician living in Seville who invented the machine during a drought in Spain in the 1990s. His company, Aquaer Generators, is already supplying clean water to different parts of the globe, especially to certain communities in Namibia.
These machines make use of electricity to cool the air until it condenses into water. To do this, the company’s generators take advantage of the absolute humidity of the air by condensing it with the support of a refrigeration installation. Its installation is very simple, since these generators are installed outside on a cemented surface and are fully insulated and protected against rust and ultraviolet solar rays.
There are other generators in the world based on water but they require high ambient humidity and low temperatures to operate at their full lungs, but Aquaer’s machines operate at temperatures up to 40 ° C and can handle 10-15% humidity.
However they claim that a small machine can produce 50 to 75 l per day, but large versions can produce up to 5000 l per day. The good news is that small generators can easily be transported on a cart to take them from one community to another.
“Our idea is not only to make a device that is effective, but also useful for people who have to walk for miles to fetch water or dig wells.”Explains Veiga.