Post by bipul62 on Feb 20, 2024 5:09:51 GMT -5
One billion people could access clean water through devices that use solar energy to condense water from the air. This is the conclusion of a team of us researchers led by jackson lord at x, the moonshot factory, who have developed a new tool to assess the global potential of water harvesting. Their tool could soon help researchers design completely off-grid water sources suitable for use in local communities in many parts of the developing world. Lack of access to safely managed drinking water currently affects around 2.2 billion people worldwide. Addressing this serious problem using existing technologies is a key part of the united nations' sustainable development goals, which state that everyone should have access to five liters of clean water every day.
This could be achieved in some regions using atmospheric water harvesters (awh), which extract clean liquid water from humid air. There are several types of awh, and lord and colleagues focused on the solar-powered continuous-mode awh (sc-awh). In this device, heat from sunlight drives hot, humid air through a heat exchanger, where it cools and releases water through uk phone number condensation. Since the sc-awh operates during the day, when relative humidity tends to be low, its efficiency is poor and it was unclear which locations in the world are suitable for its use. Geospatial tool. Now, lord's team has created a geospatial tool called "awh-geo" to assess global water harvesting potential.
Based on a google earth engine, the tool uses data from era5: a database containing a large number of historical climate observations dating back to 1979. To evaluate the different results of atmospheric water harvesting in different regions, awh-geo took into account the sunlight irradiation, relative humidity and average air temperature of each location. In addition, the tool took into account the annual variations of these parameters. The team also examined the global distribution of people without access to safe water, using data from the world health organization and unicef. Combining this with the awh-geo results, the researchers showed that atmospheric water harvesting could realistically provide five liters of drinking water to around one billion people worldwide.
This could be achieved in some regions using atmospheric water harvesters (awh), which extract clean liquid water from humid air. There are several types of awh, and lord and colleagues focused on the solar-powered continuous-mode awh (sc-awh). In this device, heat from sunlight drives hot, humid air through a heat exchanger, where it cools and releases water through uk phone number condensation. Since the sc-awh operates during the day, when relative humidity tends to be low, its efficiency is poor and it was unclear which locations in the world are suitable for its use. Geospatial tool. Now, lord's team has created a geospatial tool called "awh-geo" to assess global water harvesting potential.
Based on a google earth engine, the tool uses data from era5: a database containing a large number of historical climate observations dating back to 1979. To evaluate the different results of atmospheric water harvesting in different regions, awh-geo took into account the sunlight irradiation, relative humidity and average air temperature of each location. In addition, the tool took into account the annual variations of these parameters. The team also examined the global distribution of people without access to safe water, using data from the world health organization and unicef. Combining this with the awh-geo results, the researchers showed that atmospheric water harvesting could realistically provide five liters of drinking water to around one billion people worldwide.