We all know the adage “necessity is the mother of all inventions.” And recent drought in Australia, which caused some farmers to commit suicide, prompted Australian designer Edward Linacre to generate water from thin air. In fact, according to a report by Yahoo! News technology blog Tecca, the Australian whiz kid was inspired by the “Namib desert beetle who can live in arid conditions by collecting very small amounts of water from the air surrounding it.”
Consequently, Linacre has developed a simple low technology solution called AirDrop. It is a simple irrigation system that exploits the process of condensation to produce water out of thin air. As per the report, AirDrop uses a turbine to push air into its network of pipes underground, which is quickly cooled to soil temperature, thereby creating an environment with 100 percent humidity. “Condensation then takes place naturally, and water produced from the air is collected in a tank that's kept underground to prevent evaporation in hot areas,” as posted on the Tecca blog .
According to the description in Tecca, the AirDrop is completely self-sufficient and needs no external source of energy to work. “During especially breezy times, the winds propel the turbine that drives the air into the tubes. But during calm days without winds, a solar panel collects the energy needed to move the turbine,” as per the description on the Tecca site.
As described by Tecca, the Australian designer built a prototype of the AirDrop system, which produces a liter of water per day, in his mother's backyard. Although, the prototype is on a small scale, Linacre said that he believes AirDrop can be implemented on a larger scale in the future and extended practically to rural farmers, according to Tecca.
Recently, Linacre’s AirDrop won the 2011 James Dyson award for which the designer received £10,000. The James Dyson Award, started by British inventor Sir James Dyson, calls on design and engineering students from 18 countries to create innovative, practical, elegant solutions to some of humanity's greatest challenges. According to Huffington Post (News - Alert), the contest is open to undergraduates, as well as those who graduated in the past four years.
Ashok Bindra is a veteran writer and editor with more than 25 years of editorial experience covering RF/wireless technologies, semiconductors and power electronics. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by
Rich Steeves
