Access to clean water is still a big issue and pretty expensive even in Urban places such as Lagos, Nigeria. Access to clean water is a big issue and a matter of constant national debate in the northern part of the country.
The fact remains that pipe-borne water from most government-owned corporations doesn’t often reach the general public especially those who reside in remote places.
Drilling is an expensive mode of getting water out of the soil and in most cases, there is often the need for a government intervention
What about being able to get drinking water from humidity? This is an innovative solar-powered invention that is aimed at helping billions of people across the globe have easy access to clean and edible water.
Google and a number of innovative tech start-ups are trying to solve the problem of clean water via solar-powered photovoltaic cells which will be able to help harvest drinkable water from the humidity of the air – sounds cool right?
Well, the innovation is still at its infancy stage and hopefully, everything goes according to plan, the system needs a lot of time and further researches to work the way it’s being expected to.
Drinkable water from humidity in the air
According to a recent report by ScienceAlert, the system requires solar photovoltaic cells in order to start harvesting drinkable water straight from humidity in the air.
If this becomes possible, the technology will be useful even in places that are secluded from urbanized regions.
And if you’re wondering how big the system will need to be, the prototype the team of scientists worked was as big as a square meter.
According to the report, the test that was carried out showed that the system could harvest about 150 milliliters of water per hour per square meter.
Water as we know is one of the key ingredients of life on the planet which and access to a clean and edible one is benefiting everyone.
Places without access to clean water often run the risk of severe epidemics such as Cholera which is a constant reoccurrence in some parts of Nigeria.
Expensive but will get cheaper with time
The innovative things about this technology include the fact that it derives its energy from the sun which also translates to being usable anywhere in as much as there is sunlight reaching the place.
Since over 40% of people in Nigeria do not have regular access to electricity, an innovation like that is going to be change everything.
One thing though is the fact that the team behind the prototype made the discovery that the device doesn’t always work in all varying locations and sometimes could barely produce drinkable water in regions that have low humidity from the air of up to below 30%.
On the other hand, the system is expected to work fine in tropical locations such as Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
However, the research paper about the testing of the prototype, which was published at Nature.com, noted that it is still expensive to produce. It comes even despite it being cost-effective due to its solar power capabilities.
In the long run, the technology is expected to be available and cheaper to everyone which is the main aim of the technology in the first place.
The researchers working on the project also made it known that as the technology used in manufacturing the system becomes large scale, it would be much cheaper than the prototype.
It’s just a matter of time before the issue of drinkable water is over in Africa and other developing nations in Southeast Asia and Latin America thanks to innovations like this.