In the Air Tonight

Solar-Powered Water Catcher

My next invention is an Atmospheric Water Catcher. But before I share its design, I would first implore the reader not to attempt this at home, as dehumidifiers in their current state are not designed to create drinkable water.

A solar-powered dehumidifier can theoretically be used in a humid enough environment to create an inexhaustible supply of water directly from the air. This would occur at the rate of a tenth of a pint of water per watt per day. So a 100-watt dehumidifier would be able to create ten pints of water, at the cost of 2.4 kilowatt-hours per day.

Depending upon location, a 2 square meter solar panel (1.41 meter in length and height) can be reliably used to generate that power from diffuse radiation alone. In other words, the solar panel would not even need to directly receive sunlight, and could be positioned practically anywhere outside.

So what would the cost of such a system be? The dehumidifier would cost approximately $6.30 for a pint per day (at a cost of 10 watts), while the solar panel would cost approximately $1.00 per watt, or $157.28 per square meter. So for a pint of water per day, a 10-watt, $6.30 dehumidifier could be coupled with a 0.2 square meter (0.45 meters per side), $31.46 solar panel.

Combined, that comes out to an initial cost of $37.76, for a free pint of water per day in perpetuity.

Again, I cannot stress enough how dangerous this would be with today's dehumidifiers. A specialized version would be necessary to safely convert humidity into fresh, drinkable water. But if or when such a device is created, free water awaits!

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