Dehumidifier + water purifier = Air2Water potable water device
posted Mar 12th 2005 2:09PM
If you thought water into wine was a neat trick, check out this device from a company that believes in very literal
names, Air2Water. It combines a dehumidifier with a water purifier, to essentially suck the moisture from the air and,
instead of discarding it as one normally would, purify it to make it potable. The device, called the Dolphin, has a
certain elegance and convenience to it: no lines to hook up, no ungainly five gallon jugs to tote around — just plug in
and witness the magic. The Dolphin will produce 20 liters (a little over five gallons, for those who don't speak
metric) of water per day at 70% humidity, which is enough for your office if you go through one of those ungainly water
cooler jugs per day or less — plus, without the plastic waste, and avoiding other associated costs of water jug
transportation (emissions, namely). At first thought, this device is quite clever and yet — isn't there that nagging
feeling that someone should have developed this decades ago?
[Thanks, Kevin!]
I'm skeptical the 20L/day figure. You'd need some pretty good ventilation in a pretty warm and damp environment to pull that off. And what office (full of computers) *you* know has a 70% relative humidity?
With humidity like that you don't have to worry about static electricity.
Distilled water probably doesn't taste too well.
Yeah, so I was stranded in the desert with nothing but one of these and a five kilowatt gasoline generator. If only I had my trusty Sand2Gas handy...
man, you guys are idiots. this is a great invention, quit your whining. ok, so you might get 3 gallons of water where you're at. bfd.
It's just like the moisture vaporators from star wars. More seriously though, has anyone here ever run a dehumidifier? They're basically air conditioners that don't cool anything and they waste electricity like your mom does every night after matlock. Sure this thing will save emmisions from the truck driver, but it will more than make up difference in both emmisions and on the electric bill.
Wouldn't anyone be worried that you're drinking your boss' sweat and swampass?
Cool, but to have to survive 70% humidity DAY in day out?
Uh yeah, THANKS for that one MATTUS *bleh*
hang on...
you're avoiding emmissions, but instead using electrcity.. and where did that electricity come from? nuclear power? dammed a river? burned coal, gas, oil....
Um, the emissions are localized to industrial areas. No it doesn't solve the impending energy crisis, no it doesn't plug up the ozone layer, but it does make inroads to make residential areas more livable.
And also keep in mind solar is becoming more viable at a nearly exponential rate.
Nothing is ever created or destroyed...it just changes form. Your water right now could have been a dinosaur's urine from the prehistoric era.
Why is it that when I think of inventions in my head, at least a year or two it seems someone creates the actual product ?
Check out AquaMaker.com
Actually, I'm sure that this could be used very effectively in Equatorial African countries, and also Coastline countries. While it may not make 20L a day. I know from experience that if it could make 10L a day, a fe hundred thousand 8 to 14 year old girls would be saved a 5 mile walk every day.
All you need to do is add a Solar/Wind powersource, and you could change the life of a whole community.
whenever i'm back in taiwan... the summers are insanely hot and humid. people run a/c's run pretty much 24 hours a day and since the actual compressor unit is outside of the building, they run tubes down to the streets and the water created by the A/C process just drains into the sewer. i used to see that and think why they couldn't capture all the a/c water runoff since they always seem to have problems with water and droughts, etc.
this device would only work in these humid conditions, and only if the compressor unit is outside of the building since more than likely the interior of a building in a place where the humidity is enough for this product to be viable would be air conditioned, hence dry!
good try, i'll wait for version 2.0!
how about using it on shipboard? gotta run those big diesels to get y'all's shrimp and oysters anyway! :P
Both air2water.com and aquamaker.com seem coy about their products. No prices, no responses from purported dealers, (only ONE dealer, it seems for aquamaker) no details on maintenance, i.e. filters and such, no endorsements from anyone, anywhere.
This seems like an idea that's too good to be true.
It's also the sort of idea you would think that NASA developed as part of Apollo in the 60's; or that the military developed it for certain environments, e.g. submarines or something.
I have doubts about this because an open environment technology like this could be prone to bacteria - unlike, say, a fridge - where the tech part is all sealed up.
But I'm not a techie - so I'm only guessing.
However - I would seriously like to have one rather than use the 5 gallon bottles, which seem to me like the days of the ice man delivering blocks of ice that you put in your insulated ice box - before fridges were cheap enough for the general public.
This is an idea whose time has come, but these companies and their machines don't seem legit to me. There could be a fortune to be made if the cost was low enough, but I doubt it is.
I think vehicles should have this. You know, a cup holder with a little tube that can dispense water! Yeah, i'm a geneus.
In your typical office environment, this may seem to be inefficient due to the drier, air-conditioned environment. This machine can and would run 24 hrs a day, dehumidifying an office space and allowing the A/C to be used less.
Same situation applies at home. If it reduces the humidity present in the air, then there's less work to do for your air conditioner. Yes, this device would use electricity, but the A/C would use less, you'd get purified water out of the air, have one less bill to pay to your water delivery guy, no giant plastic bottles to lug around or store, and no plastic waste from those bottles.
um, what does everybody have against drinking tap water. it's piped to your house/office building, eleminating all those 5 gallon jugs and delivery truck emissions, and doesn't use any electricity
THAT WAS MY IDEA!!!
When I was 12 I saw an episode of Star Trek where Picard was brain scanned by this probe and lived a life time in it's computer so that others may know about the people of a now dead planet.
They all died because the water on the planet evaporated.
So, I thought, "Why couldn't they just use something like a de-humidifier to suck that water back out of the air so they could drink it?"
My Mom said that was a silly idea.
WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN TO ME MOTHER!!!
#20, I'm not so sure having a dehumidifier would make your AC use less energy. My logic is that the dehumidifier shouldn't cool the air at all since the whole thing is contained in one room. In fact, it'll heat the air a little bit because of inefficiency.
Unless it's much easier for the AC to cool drier air, it doesn't seem like having a dehumidifier would reduce its energy use. The freon is still going to cool the coils to the same temp, for the time dictated by the thermostat.
After writing these 2 paragraphs, I've been thinking about it for a long time (I am a nerd. Unfortunately not a physics major), I'm really not sure about it, and I'm tired. Maybe I overlooked something simple. What do you guys think?
if the AC was already in work making the air drier, wouldn't this make the air so dry that it'd be like in areas where ppl put on lotion 24/7? But i think like someone above said, you get some and you lose some, like adding a race header to your engine and creating more emissions. it's all opinion when you think about the pros and cons. So this is a brilliant idea, one that wastes electricity. Or this is a dumb idea, one that would put the waste into use. And tap water isn't drinkable at all in most metropolitan areas.
#23 You're right, it will heat the air, not just due to inefficiency, but also because you're putting power into a mechanical system and it's being transferred to heat eventually. An A/C cools air by transferring the heat from one side (as well as the heat it produces) to the hot side (outside). However, what you're overlooking is that more humid air is interpreted by your body as being warmer and more uncomfortable. Usually we compensate for this by cranking the A/C higher, which eventually also does some of the job as a dehumidifier by draining some of the condensation formed on the cooling coils to an outside location. A/Cs are not as efficient as dehumidifiers at doing this, however, and a system set up mainly for cooling vs dehumidifying will be less efficient at cooling when the humidity is higher. This is why high-end central A/C units will have separate dehumidifiers within the system: it is more effective and power efficient to separate the job of cooling and the job of dehumidifying to separate systems, even at the cost of introducing a new power system.
This is the reason why we tend to cool our houses lower in the summer than what we think is bearable in the winter, when humidity is lower.
#21 You obviously live in a place where drinking water doesn't taste like poolwater. Lucky you... Move to LA, NY, Philly, or elsewhere and you will find out why people don't drink the tapwater. When I lived in LA, I wouldn't even subject my plants to the tapwater. (j/k)
#16 You wouldn't only be able to use them in a really humid climate, even in LA I had to empty my dehumidifier every week. It was only serving a single room, and the tank was 5 gallons. I also had an A/C in the room that was taking some of the water away from the dehumidifier. There's plenty of water in the air, even in drier climates and even during the winter, let alone during the summer on the east coast.
Similar product, Dragonfly is readily available here in Singapore ... check out http://hyflux.com/pdt_aquovate.html for specs and the theory behind it.
Am I the only one that thought of Tatooine?
Actually #25, New York has apparently some of the best tap water in the world, and especially in the winter time or, for some reason, now, when it comes out frosty cool. I just had some a second ago and it tastes great. Besides, where do you think Dasani comes from? (Hint: Queens)
Sure... Pulling water out of the air is great, but how to do that on the office buildings where the HVAC already "dries up" the air to the point where your contacts stick to the eyes?
Actually, the Hyflux's Dragonfly was used in the tsunami hit areas in South Asia earlier this year to to provide drinking water for the victims.
im not to sure about air2water but i have an aquamaker unit and it works perfectly.
1800 dollar is the price tag
I enquired about the dragon-fly and the air2water (there the same company) and I got 4 responces from them. they said the stand up unit is $1200, and the new counter top model due out mid 2005 will have a price tag of 800.
Check out a company named Wataire Industries.
They manufacture atmospheric water generators, and have received orders for over $80 million worth of machines since Jan 05.
Here is a link to their site.
It answers all of the questions,
re: power usage, bacteria, purity, etc.
http://www.wataireindustries.com/au.htm
My husband swears that all dehumidifiers produce useable distilled water. I can't find anything to prove or disprove this. Any info?
i am interested in obtaining a complete catalog of your products
please inform me as soon as possible
have a great day...
All the above comments are every question I have asked myself over the last 12 months.
Now I have a company based in Mallorca, Spain
(Hot and Humid)www.agua-water.com renting and selling Air water generators to the general public and businesses.
I think the real future is in the larger units 100 to 1500 litres per day to people who have to rely on tanker deliveries everyday for their water supply 20 % Soutnern Spain
Yuri vielot get in contact with me it is important. C.Baynes
# yuri vielot get in contact with me its important C.Baynes ATPENT.net
#35 water from a dehumidifier is not distilled. It is the same as if you had an ice filled glass of lemonade on a hot humid day. The water from the air would collect on the outside of the glass. In order to distill water it needs to be boiled and them condensed. The result is distilled water.
#35 water from a dehumidifier is not distilled. It is the same as if you had an ice filled glass of lemonade on a hot humid day. The water from the air would collect on the outside of the glass. In order to distill water it needs to be boiled and them condensed. The result is distilled water.
I'm the guy that actually sells the Dolphin water machine in the Northern california area. If you are in another i can put you in touch with the right person. I would appreciate the opportunity to get in touch with any and all of you that may be interested in this fantastic machine. I have been using this product myself for sometime now the water tastes great and I love the price. The unit paid for itself in a matter of months. Mention engadet to get the promo price. My email is alwong18@hotmail.com, my contact cell phone is 415 310-6688. Regards, Al
Good
Hi All,
As way of introduction, my name is Glen Hamilton, Vice President of Air2Water, responsible for New Business and Distributor Development. Everything that Al Wong mentions in his email is correct. With respect to water generation capacity, we actually have machines producing in excess of 8 gallons per day in tropical climates. I have one in our kitchen that produces a least that every day. As for quality, after condensated water comes off the condenser, the water is filtered through a cup filter into a holding tank where it is subjected to the first UV exposure. Once it is exposed the system then pumps the water up through 4 more filters, including a proprietary 0.015 micron UF filter and on to a UV in the top collection tank prior to dispensing. The water is re-circulated every hour through the filtration system to keep the water fresh.
I welcome any questions and comments, and certainly if any of you are interested in becoming a distributor, please let me know and I would be pleased to let you know what territories are still available and answer any questions you may have.
Best Regards,
Glen Hamilton
Vice President
Air2Water LLC.
Here in Central Australia, tour coaches' air-conditioners extract all their humidity from..well, humans. The result is that they start to smell like ammonium. (People complain of a urine-like smell). The reason is that, like in a refrigerator, there are other volatiles & evaporates besides water.
So you can't drink water condensed from a confined environment. But there are many other uses for distilled water, where tiny aromatic impurities don't matter. Steam irons, batteries.. even saving the water in a second tank to be passed through an evaporative cooler (saving calcium build-up), car windscreen-washers, etc etc.
Steve
I am a british ex-pat and enjoy a cup of tea and a glass of water without the tast and smell of chemicles.
The water where I live is gross and I can't drink it at all. We have a humidifier which works well and produces plenty. My question is, is it drinkable? if not is there an easy way of converting it so. I have an aquarium and the needs distilled water too. My wife and I have run the usual tests from the store kits and all seems well. Will it harm the fishes as it is? I would welcome any coments!