Zero Mass Solar Panels Pull Clean Drinking Water Straight from the Air Adele Peters - coExist
go to original October 20, 2016

With pilot programs in Ecuador, Jordan, Mexico, and the U.S., the technology could provide a reliable, clean water to many people who don't have it today. (Zero Mass Water)

When a family in Guayaquil, Ecuador turns on the tap for a glass of water, it doesn't flow from city pipes - there are no city pipes. Instead, a new type of solar panel in the backyard turns moisture in the air into clean drinking water and sends it inside the family's simple bamboo home.

"We started this company to provide water to everyone, everywhere," says Cody Friesen, CEO of Zero Mass, the startup making the new solar panel, called Source.

"Everybody's heard about the latest nanofilter this... or whatever the latest pump technology is," he says. "None of those end up being sort of the leapfrog technology that addresses the fact that drinking water is a fundamental human right, and yet we have one person dying every 10 seconds from waterborne illness on the planet."

Friesen, who also runs an energy storage company called Fluidic, has been thinking about water scarcity all of his life, growing up in the Sonoran Desert. While installing his battery technology in Indonesia - which has plenty of rain, but still lacks clean drinking water - he decided to begin focusing his time on the issue of global water supply.

The startup created a material that passively absorbs water from the air. It's a hyper-efficient, fast version of what happens if you leave a bowl of sugar open and it starts to clump from moisture. Then the solar panel powers a process that drives the water back out. The water is evaporated to purify it, removing pollutants.

"Basically everybody who runs an air conditioner makes water from air," says Friesen. "That part's not the magic part. We do that really, really efficiently, independent of infrastructure. We do that in a way that what you have as a result is essentially double distilled water. Ultra pure water."

Read the rest at coExist

Related: World Bank Calls for Improved Water and Sanitation Access for Latin American Kids (Humanosphere)

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