Development of an Atmospheric Drinking Water Generator

Abstract

Some communities have difficulties accessing clean water sources because of a lack of water supply facilities especially in rural areas and during disasters such as droughts and floods. Thus, the atmospheric drinking water generator is proposed to overcome this problem by providing a system that can convert air into safe drinking water. This atmospheric drinking water generator uses the principle of condensation of air, cooled to its dew point, and becomes so saturated with water vapor that it can no longer hold the liquid. Peltier or thermoelectric cooler (TEC) is used as a condensation process medium to cool the air to the dew point. Water that has been converted from the air is collected in a collector tank. When the collection tank is full of water, water will be pumped out through a filter set to remove possible bacteria and add minerals to the water. The proposed system with a condenser size of 4.5 cm × 4 cm × 2 cm can produce 6–9 ml of water per hour depending on surrounding conditions. To increase the amount of water converted from the air, the size of the condenser used needs to be enlarged to increase the surface area of the condensation process.