Austrian Kristof Retezár industrial designer creates a self-filling water bottle that extracts humidity from the air, condensing it into drinkable water. Fontus, as the device is called, works best when it’s attached to a bicycle, allowing cyclists to generate water during long-distance rides through remote areas where supplies are further apart.
Fontus is solar-powered, and consists of a condensator linked to a series of hydrophobic surfaces that repel water. The condensators functions like a cooler, chilling the air taken in as the bike moves forward, and creating condensation around the cool hydrophobic surface; it’s the same principle that creates water droplets on the outside of cold objects remove from the refrigerator.
The main difference is that Fontus coats its cooler with a hydrophobic material that immediately repels condensed water droplets as the form, forcing them to flow in the compartment.
“This is simply condensation of the humidity that is contained in the air,” Retezár explains, “You always have a certain percentage of humidity in the air, it doesn't matter where you are — even in the desert. That means you would always potentially be able to extract that humidity from the air.”
Under ideal conditions—when the temperature ranges between 86 degrees and 104 degrees Fahrenheit with 80 to 90 percent humidity—Fontus harvests about 0.5 liters of water within an hour. A built-in filter prevents dust and bugs from settling in the water, but the current iteration cannot sift out contaminating agents. In other words, the resulting water is clean so long as the surrounding air isn’t contaminated.
“We're thinking about making a bottle that also has a carbon filter, and this one would be for cities or areas where you might think the air is contaminated. But originally, this water bottle was thought to be used in nature, and places where you wouldn't have contaminated air,” says Retezár.
Retezár wants to take the underlying concept behind Fontus and upscale-it to create a standalone version that could be used in high humidity regions of the world where water supply is scarce. This new and improved Fontus will replace the bicycle-momentum driven approach with one reliant on an inverter ventilator to suck air into the system.
In the meantime, Fontus will be available through a crowdfunding campaign launching this March.
Source: Livescience
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