Water sources are being depleted at an alarming rate and scientists are
struggling hard to come up with possible solutions to this dilemma.
While their efforts continue, we have a breakthrough in Peru.
Researchers have joined forces with an ad agency to provide a feasible
solution for the shortage of potable water in Lima. The problem of
shortage of drinkable water is a serious one and required urgent
attention. After some serious work, researchers have a viable solution
that is brilliant and yet quite simple; a billboard capable of turning
air humidity into drinkable water. According to the map the
city of Lima lies towards the northern edge of Atacama – The driest
desert in the world, and its surrounding villages hardly get 0.51 inches
of precipitation per year. The capital city relied for a long time on
runoff from glaciers and drainage from the Andes Mountains. However,
climate change has made supply from both sources even scarcer.
Out
of 8.5 million people who are residents of Lima, 1.2 million are faced
with zero availability of running water. Their only options include
drawing water out of wells- that water is polluted and it is a known
fact- or turn to unregulated private water companies that distribute
water via water trucks and charge as high as almost 20 times the normal
price of tap water. Quite aware of this problem and its severity, Lima’s
University of Engineering and Technology started looking for a way to
find a solution to this dire problem. The fact that the city’s average
air humidity is 83% because of where its located- along the Southern
Pacific Ocean, UTEC joined hands with an advertising agency, Mayo
DraftFCB, resulting in the creation and installation of a billboard that
produces water out of air- literally. The billboard is first of its
kind.
Let’s take a look at how it works.This amazing invention is made up of five components which constitute a
reverse osmosis system. Step one is capturing humid air, step two is
running it through an air filter into the condenser which creates water
and that water is then passed through a carbon filter into a central
holding tank. One simply has to turn on the faucet that has been
installed at the base of billboard and they’ll get their cool water
supply which will be drinkable.This innovation can produce up to a hundred liters of portable water per
day. In just a period of three months since it has been installed, the
billboard has supplied residents of Lima with 9,450 liters.As of now, there is only one such billboard installed at kilometer
marker 89.5 on the Pan-American Highway, however, imagine what a dozen
of such billboards will achieve!
