Creating Water from Thin Air

Iphtashu Fitz writes "In order to provide the U.S. Military with water in places like Iraq, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency gave millions of dollars in research funding to companies like LexCarb and Sciperio to try to extract water from the air. Amazingly, a company that DARPA didn't fund, Aqua Sciences, beat them all to the punch by developing a machine that can extract up to 600 gallons of water a day from thin air even in locations like arid deserts. The 20 foot machine does this without using or producing toxic materials or byproducts. The CEO of Aqua Sciences declined to elaborate on how the machine works, but said it is based on the natural process by which salt absorbs water."

We already have one of these...

[phekno]

at my seitch.

Sincerely,
Muad'Dib

Someone contact the Fremen

[Verteiron]

I'm sure they'll be interested.

It should work...

[ShadowBlasko]

Just as long as the superconductors you use on your condensors are not vulnerable to a puppeteer plague.

If that happens its going to take a long time before Louis shows up.

Invented a long time ago, in a galaxy far away...

[bbk]

Anyone heard of Tatooine's moisture farmers?

I thought so.

(sorry, it was just too obivious)

Water is great

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a button to switch it from 'water' to 'beer?'

Re:Windtraps

[Amouth]

who wants to bet it is a water tank? that has to be "serviced" to keep running :)

Uncle Owen!

[norminator]

What I really need is a droid that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators.

Just add water!

[quarrel]

Asked to clarify how it worked, the CEO noted- "Just add water, and in a few minutes it'll be ready!".

--Q

Finally...

[Mantrid42]

Some good Vaporware!

Re:Water is great

[Rik Sweeney]

Is there a button to switch it from 'water' to 'beer?'

I called Jesus, he said that he can do water into wine... will that do?

Re:hm

[hchaos]

Sounds like they probably use a hydroscopic compound such as calcium chloride and then you some type of ion replacement to recover the water (precipitate calcium metal and some other non-soluable salt, such as Fe(III)Cl.

Quick! To the Patent Office! That'll teach them to keep their methods secret.

Re:Good!

[Random Utinni]

Glad to see tax dollars aren't being wasted on Vaporware

I thought Vaporware was the desired result here, no?

Re:these vaporators you speak of...

[sm62704]

Obi Wan: "These aren't the vaporators you're lookong for."

Dumb soldier: "These aren't the vaporators we're lookong for. Move along."

Re:Water is great

[Gryle]

If it's American beer, there's really not a difference.

George..

[msimm]

what did we tell you about trolling the forums?

Re:They did this in ancient times in the middle ea

[GIL_Dude]

Maybe it was only red spray paint from PETA after they got mad at Moses for breaking the pet rock.

Old technology

[tsotha]

This technology is actually pretty old.

One of the problems which has dogged airships from day 1 is the inability to replace the weight of burned fuel. There's a couple ways you can deal with this problem, but none of them are ideal. Modern blimps and airships are actually heavier than air, relying on lift from engine pods to get the airship in the air. As they burn fuel they get lighter, but they're never actually "lighter than air". Early airships were much too large for this strategy especially since engine technology was far less advanced.

The most successful airship in history, the Graf Zeppelin, used a gas called Blau Gas to power its engines. Blau Gas is just a mixture of propane and hydrogen that weighs the same as air, so when you burn it and the gas volume is replaced by air of the same weight you don't have any buoyancy problems. Graf Zeppelin used hydrogen, which is relatively cheap, for its lifting gas. If it became too light they could vent enough hydrogen to restore neutral buoyancy.

But this scheme wasn't very efficient, from an engineering perspective. Every cubic meter of fuel was a cubic meter that couldn't be used for lift. Also, as they designed the Hindenburg they were concerned about safety, so they decided the Hindenburg would be filled with helium instead of hydrogen. Since heliem is about 10% less efficient as a lifting gas, Zeppelin engineers decided they just couldn't live with Blau Gas. Also, Blau Gas has the same safety drawbacks as hydrogen. Helium is much more expensive than hydrogen, so if the company was to be profitable there was no way they could just vent helium when the ship was too light. So if they were to use diesel fuel exclusively in the Hindenburg, they needed a way to add weight to the airship in flight.

The solution was to remove water from the air and use it as ballast to replace the now-missing diesel fuel. The system they designed used a silica gel, the same stuff that comes in a little packet labeled "DO NOT EAT" when you buy a pair of shoes. Ambient air was blown over the gel, which is highly water absorbent. The gel was then heated using waste engine heat to produce water vapor, which was collected in a condenser. Eventually they decided to use the diesel exhaust (which is apparently very humid) instead of ambient air. This was 70 years ago.

Re:They did this in ancient times in the middle ea

[AJWM]

Of course, there's always the chance as the verbal history was passed down, tellers embellished a bit to impress the kids better.

"In my day, we not only had to walk uphill both ways to school, we had to part the seas to do it!"

"You parted the seas?! Lucky bastard! We had to hold breath and walk along the bottom..."

"Oh yes. Well, at least you were walking. We had to outrun the whole Egyptian army.. And wander in the desert for forty days."

"Days? We had to wander for forty weeks!"

"Well I say days, it was really forty years. But we were tough, it just seemed like days to us..."

Re:I know a SERE instructor...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Maybe you're also unaware that in the rest of the world we don't eat wichetty grubs, we have no idea how to wrestle with crocodiles and we don't drink Fosters.

A little while back I asked an Australian friend of mine about the 'Crocodile Hunter'. He told me that he was unheard of in Australia and he was just some Australian stereotype promulgated by American TV. But when Irwin died I read comments like that of the Australian Prime Minister saying that he represented the real Australia. So now I assume that all Australian stereotypes are accurate :-)

Re:Invented a long time ago, in a galaxy far away.

[hey!]

Why do you think the DoD funded this? They want to keep those Arab wannabe jedis down on the farm.

Re:Frank Herbert was prescient

[vistic]

Please don't tell me you have a prototype stillsuit in the works, to recycle your urine and feces.

That's one thing I would not want to beta test.

Just make sure that the processing parts of it still work when you're walking without rhythm.