The World Water Institute reports that about 700 million people in 43 countries are currently suffering from water stress and scarcity. The cost of providing access to safe drinking water can be very high, and for some developing cities, the cost climbs even as much as five to seven times more than the average price paid in the US or Europe. While the earth’s supply of fresh water may technically be enough for our needs, a lot of it is locked away in glaciers, need to be extracted from underground, or can only be made available through infrastructure or purification methods which adds up to its cost.

There is another source that may be able to much readily provide water to drink, and that is the air around us.

Water dissolved in the air, or simply put, water vapor, can be extracted by condensation. An atmospheric water generator (AWG), is a device invented that extracts water from humid ambient air. Dubbed as “plug-and-drink”, this solution literally provides potable water wherever power is available, without the use of piped installations or any ground, running, or stored water source.

In an AWG, air is generally cooled within a device enough to make it condense into a liquid. It then goes through a series of treatments and purification which will make the water ready and safe to drink. There are varied executions of this technology, the most successful of which are those that will incur the least energy to yield the most output (water) possible.

This 2019, CES Innovation Awards honored Watergen as Best Innovation in the category Tech For A Better World, for being able to provide “…constant access to safe, high quality drinking water, eliminating dependence on tap water, environmental waste and cost of plastic bottles. It [Watergen GENNY] is a plug and drink solution requiring only electricity to operate with easy integration into homes and offices.”

And indeed, Watergen’s GENius Heat-exchange Technology makes it a lot easy and efficient to access safe drinking water. A single Watergen unit can provide for a household, or a community, depending on the type of equipment and extent of need. To date, its unique patented design makes it the world’s most energy-efficient AWG of its kind, producing up to five times more water per kilowatt than any other technology in the market using just 300Wh per liter.

AWGs are best used in areas where there is totally no water source, or where ground and surface water are toxic or heavily contaminated. There are also areas where desalination or setting up infrastructure is costly or difficult, either way, AWGs will always prove to be useful.

Do you know of any communities that can benefit from this innovation? Let us know! We are excited to work with you in bringing sustainable development solutions. To help achieve clean and safe drinking water for all, send us an email at giftinglife@force21.cwtlimited.com

Liezel Salera
Assistant Manager
Community Outreach and Development