Water from humidity a reality that can't be debucked

[ebclr]

At Watergen, we create water from the largest available resource – the air.
Our ground-breaking technology delivers cost, efficiency and reliability benefits while creating fresh,
clean, premium-quality drinking water, as pure and natural as the first drop of rain.

http://www.watergen.com/

[ataradov]

There does not seem to be any specifications or requirements on those units. Will they work in the middle of the Sahara desert? That would be sweet, 900 liters a day is not a bad production, and energy could be produced using solar panels. The desert gets plenty of unobstructed sun.

Or do they only work in places, where the water is available anyway?

[beanflying]

Same issues as all of these water from air devices. Works great in Humid air and doesn't in Dry air. Multiple attempts and plenty of debunks from Thunerfoot, EEVblog and others. See also waterseer, fontus, et al. If its humid it generally rains so collect it and put it in a tank

[james_s]

Nobody has ever claimed that extracting water from air doesn't work, it does. The issue is the amount of energy required to get a usable amount of water, especially if the air is not extremely humid, in most cases it simply is not cost effective.

[ebclr]

Do Israel have a Very humidity air? I don't think so

[ataradov]

Do Israel have a Very humidity air? I don't think so

It probably varies. But in any event, it is a dishonest marketing to not specify at what level of humidity those specified volumes of water are produced. Because that is the only way to judge efficiency.

But they know it, and that's exactly the reason they don't publish this data.

[GregDunn]

"GENius TM includes a one-of-a-kindunique heat exchanger" 

So, there's only one of them?  How do they sell more than one?   

I especially love the part "An integrated energy optimization module of the GEN-350 continuously optimizes water production in accordance with external atmospheric conditions"  or in other words, "the less water in the air, the less it delivers."   

At least they have "professionals TM" building their web site, though ones who can't use a spell checker.  Impressive looking, no content, tons of processor cycles spent generating a faked set of counters.

[vk6zgo]

Do Israel have a Very humidity air? I don't think so

As a quite small country with a fairly long coastline on the Mediterranean, another on the Red Sea, with the river Jordan also contributing, there are probably reasonable levels of humidity across much of the country.

You want dry?---- try the Simpson Desert!

[KL27x]

This forum thinks we can live on the moon, but we can't get water from a dehumidifier?

Just build solar panels, duh.

[ataradov]

This forum thinks we can live on the moon, but we can't get water from a dehumidifier?

We can. But it is impractical. And the company is deceptive in its advertising.

[beanflying]

Both can technically can be done but it still doesn't make either good ideas. 

[Marco]

Do Israel have a Very humidity air? I don't think so

Mountains near seas tend to, yes. Mountains filled with military encampments which can pay high premiums for water. Most normal people don't settle in parts of the mountains without easily accessible water though, for obvious reasons.

People settle where some kind of water is available in the first place ... that access can be disrupted, but with a truck full of equipment you can drill a well in a couple of hours. With a truck full of equipment you can use RO at a fraction of the energy cost to filter polluted water. Water from air is only a reasonable solution in a vanishing small number of contexts.

[Wolfgang]

At Watergen, we create water from the largest available resource – the air.
Our ground-breaking technology delivers cost, efficiency and reliability benefits while creating fresh,
clean, premium-quality drinking water, as pure and natural as the first drop of rain.

http://www.watergen.com/

... these devices work best in environments with heavy rain and high humidity. 

[Kleinstein]

It really works best in very humid environment -  in this case it can still be useful, as the water could be clean, if they can keep dust and bacteria out.

In a dry environment, water from air is more one the desperate side, with hardly a chance to work economical unless you get the energy for free.
5 times the efficiency does not help if one would need 100 times to be a good solution.

[metrologist]

Water from humidity is very real and that is why many mfgs specify an operating temperature AND RH humidity spec. We do not want it to rain on our circuits! 

[Wolfgang]

It really works best in very humid environment -  in this case it can still be useful, as the water could be clean, if they can keep dust and bacteria out.

In a dry environment, water from air is more one the desperate side, with hardly a chance to work economical unless you get the energy for free.
5 times the efficiency does not help if one would need 100 times to be a good solution.

... keeping dust and everything else out is probably more effort than a classic water filter. And, as you write, in a dry environment it does not make sense due to its high energy consumption. So, it works *in principle*, but it never works well. If its dry, its inefficient, if its wet, there are simpler ways. A technology nobody needs in the end.

[Mechatrommer]

Water from humidity is very real...

meh, any split unit air conditioning is air to water collecting machine, its just we dont collect it we drain it to the drain.

Do Israel have a Very humidity air? I don't think so

dont worry, Galilee lake as the main source of freshwater for Israel (land of palestine) will not dry up anytime soon until near end of the day...

[KL27x]

as the water could be clean, if they can keep dust and bacteria out.

The water is not clean. This is an added expense to the efficiency equation. The water will require post-processing to be potable. If memory serves, dehumidiers and AC units breed bacteria that cause Legionnaire's disease.

We can [live on the Moon]. But it is impractical.

In the way some people seem to think, i.e. completely self-sufficiently from the Earth, it is not possible. If it is energy inefficient to get water out of dry air, that's child's play from getting water and oxygen out of moon rocks. We can't do it with today's technology. It would be a continual expense of Earth resources to sustain human life on the Moon. It's not an engineering problem. Where you have nothing to begin with, you can't increase efficiency to get something out of it. Even your solar panels will never produce as much energy as it takes to maintain and replace them. Ditto for nuclear energy on the moon.

[beanflying]

Certainly has been the case with large commercial evaporative cooling in the past and bug growth. Most of the big ones run dosing pumps for chemically treating the reservoirs under them. There are specific warnings on domestic ones for usage for similar reasons that often go ignored.

[cdev]

Around 1000 years ago the US Southwest had an incredible drought that lasted more than a century. It was so dry that trees grew on the bottom of what are now large, deep lakes. many of them are still there, standing. (as well as trees from previous droughts millenniums ago)

What would happen if that happened now? Would all/most/some of the cities and farms there be abandoned until it started raining again?

Similarly, every couple of years they find flash-frozen woolly mammoths in Russia thawing out of river banks, etc. Many of them were well preserved because the weather just changed one day embedding them under permafrost, and typically didn't change back until now.

[Mechatrommer]

If memory serves, dehumidiers and AC units breed bacteria that cause Legionnaire's disease.

doesnt apply to home split unit. Legionnaire only breed in contained water used as evaporative cooling in larger centralized air-conditioning system for large building. it will become airborne when water evaporates or become mist.
https://healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/J_M/Minimising-the-risk-of-a-Legionella-infection-at-home

home split unit generates water from condensation on in-the-house cooling coil (there is no water involved outdoor for cooling the condenser). if done properly, coil and drainage cleaned, enclosed etc, i think the water can be as clean as purification through boiling. anyway, any kind of water in contact with suitable bacteria etc will become contagious like anything else, skin, blood or body fluid etc. so water treatment by chemical or boiling should be taken for more safety measure. here are the norm to boil tap water, only a few that occasionally drink it directly including errr... that lazy arse.

istr looking at self sustained solar powered water generator unit installation on the desert, they look exactly like how home split unit works, generates water through condensation, its just maybe the cooling cycle is fine-tuned for low humidity environment, and collecting system is kept clean or sanitized. more power should be needed for that purpose though.