Aquair

Water is a need that people cannot live without.

AQUAIR "acquire water from the air"

uses Honduras as its focal point, focusing on specific areas that are lack resources to collect clean drinking water during the dry season. In Honduras, the humidity is constantly very high throughout the whole year and prone to fog conditions. So, we want to use these natural resources to our benefit.

AQUAIR is a portable fog harvesting device. As fog passes through the centrifugal system, the water is expelled and clean water is collected. People who live in remote areas and lack water resources can now collect water from the fog that is near their houses.

Four main features

AQUAIR collects water in a waterproof mesh fabric which is stretched across a pre-fabricated bamboo structure, in order to maximize airflow. What’s unique about AQUAIR is the fan and small centrifuge using gravity in the form of a

30-kilogram weight attached to the framework.

It lures water vapor down a tube into an awaiting bucket. The entire structure can be broken down put back together by hand, locally sourced rocks and bamboo can be added to the design for the weight and flexible elements

FEATURE

Back

Step :

HOW TO USE

GRAVITY AS POWER

After we proved that fan is able to harvest fog, we then started considering where the power engine comes from.

As our target area, Honduras, is barely accessible to electricity, we thought of using "gravity" to be a self-sufficient power source. When a certain amount of weight falls from a height, it produces potential energy. By converting this energy through gear set, fan can be powered to certain RPM that is enough to suck the fog in.

Other than concept, we tried to test out the optimal value between "falling time" ,"weight" and "fan speed" by adjusting the gear ratio and different shape of fan. During the design progress, we've consulted with professors from Aeronautic Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.

prototype

mechanism

Step :

LOCAL & IMPORT

The project is designed to be easy to build and assemble, so the local people can easily access the parts or create their own versions of AQUAIR. We tried to reduce the import components as many as we can. Only the very crucial parts that need durability and cannot be accessed easily by local resources should be imported.

If any part is defective, it is easy and cheap to replace. Right now, we're still working on lowing the ration of imported material. Such as consulting with local university and factory to get their support.