HydroPanels Use Sun and Air, to Produce Water

April 18, 2022

Solar can address two crisis – clean energy, and clean water.

Posted by greenman3610
Filed in Crock of the Week

5 Comments »

5 Responses to “HydroPanels Use Sun and Air, to Produce Water”

thefordprefect (@thefordprefect) Says:

April 19, 2022 at 5:31 am

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mboli Says:

April 19, 2022 at 8:17 am
Interesting article on “Atmospheric Water Generation” companies and technologies published on the Aquatech web site. It says Zero Mass Water, which makes the Hydropanel product, is one of an estimated 32 companies actively selling such devices and 71 companies in all. ZMW has attracted a lot of attention because it received a very big investment from famous investors.

https://www.aquatechtrade.com/news/water-treatment/zero-mass-water-why-all-the-hate/#

The article puts the product in perspective: it is very expensive water. It does not scale up, there will never be community solar water arrays. There are other companies selling similar products. Investors hope this is the beginning of a successful technology.

One point that I notice is that the product explicitly is making drinking water. The distilled water has minerals added so it tastes good.

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ubrew12 Says:

April 19, 2022 at 11:06 am
Solar arrays and TEC’s (thermo-electric coolers) are both solid-state devices: with proper scale-up and economies of scale, there’s no limit to how inexpensively these devices can be made (per liter of fresh water made). I’m assuming in these devices (without further research) that the electricity from a solar panel is directed through a TEC, the cold side of which makes dew from passing air. So it’ll obviously work better at night, and in areas with higher humidity levels. While I understand that these are currently really expensive devices, I don’t see a reason they cannot undergo the same economies-of-scale that solar panels have undergone (and Li batteries are expected to undergo): with solid-state devices its really about getting the proper material streams lined up to flow into your printing facility, which you design to be huge and to run 24/7. With no moving parts, these devices should give good service, and offer potential for reclamation at end-of-life.

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- mboli Says:
  
  April 19, 2022 at 8:29 pm
  The device cycles. It blows air through a hygroscopic material inside a box. When the material saturates it shuts off the fans and closes the ports, then heats the material to drive off the moisture, which condenses on another surface inside the box.
  
  Here is a description (along with a critique).
  https://www.globalwaterintel.com/global-water-intelligence-magazine/21/5/general/selling-water-at-150-m3-to-the-world-s-poorest-people-with-billionaire-backing
  
  The advertised lifetime is 10 years.
  
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rhymeswithgoalie Says:

April 20, 2022 at 1:18 pm
Fifteen years ago a guy living in a trailer in the Mojave Desert made a video about how to make a solar still from a hole in the ground, a source of tainted water, a sheet of plastic, and a bucket:

See also: Fog nets and dew collectors

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