Atmospheric water generator: a sustainable choice for water supply in arid regions
Atmospheric water generator: a sustainable choice for water supply in arid regions
29 Apr 2021
The amount of water in the world is limited. Today, unprecedented pressure on the earth’s resources threatens our access to water. The world is quickly running out of clean water, and the poor are the ones who suffer the most. Due to geography, climate, engineering, regulations and resource competition, some areas seem to be relatively full of fresh water, while others are facing drought and destructive pollution. In many developing countries, clean water is either difficult to obtain, or it is a commodity that requires laborious work or large amounts of money.
So how can these remote communities have healthy drinking water? In order to create a more sustainable and more efficient provision of water resources.
Atmospheric water generator (AWG) uses technology to produce drinking water from the surrounding air. This offers the potential to expand water supply during periods of shortages, pollution incidents and other problems that may disrupt drinking water services. Natural disasters such as hurricanes and public water infrastructure failures such as pipeline corrosion that causes pollution problems have increased interest in AWG technology as an emergency and long-term supply solution.
Atmospheric water generator range from household appliances that can produce 1 to 20 liters of water per day to commercial scale equipment that can produce 1,000 to 10,000 liters or more per day. The water production rate is highly dependent on the air temperature and the amount of water vapor (ie humidity) in the air. The most commonly used atmospheric water generator system uses condenser and cooling coil technology to absorb moisture from the air in the same way as a household dehumidifier. Although running these condenser and fan systems may require a lot of energy, recent technological advances have greatly improved the water-to-energy ratio, thereby increasing the feasibility of using these systems to help increase the country’s drinking water resources.