Track: Undergraduate Student Paper Competition

Abstract

Water is a major component of all living matter, which when pure is an odourless, tasteless, only slightly compressible liquid that appears bluish in dense layers, freezes at 0 ° C and boils at 100 ° C. This design intends to address the problem of water scarcity in the rural area of South Africa with KwaZulu-Natal as case study, by designing an atmospheric water generator that will obtain water from the atmosphere. The atmosphere has about 0% to 4% of water available as water vapor. The present technologies of harvesting water from the atmosphere are differentiated into three: the cooling condensing type, wet desiccant type and Peltier effect type. Concept were generated and a final design was developed that works using a fan and solar power, with the aid of the temperature difference in the soil and the atmosphere to condense the water vapour into water. Under favoarable conditions the atmospheric water generator is able to produce 23 l/day of water.