In drought-stricken areas, communities facing water shortages, or even in residential and commercial buildings eager to improve their environmental footprints, atmospheric water generators represent a new frontier in water production.
While it might sound like a tidbit from a science fiction movie, even the driest places on earth have moisture in the air that can be extracted and used for everyday necessities like plumbing and drinking.
Unlike traditional dehumidifiers, which also pull moisture from the air, AWGs utilize filtration and sterilization technology to make water safe to drink.
And while there are plenty of AWG companies out there — and the science itself isn’t novel — AWGs are becoming more efficient, affordable, and revolutionary in combating water scarcity in a myriad of communities.
Aquaria Technologies, a San Francisco-based AWG startup, was founded in 2022 to help provide affordable and clean drinking water in areas most affected by climate change.
Using heat exchange and condensation, Aquaria’s generators draw air into their systems, cool that air below its dew point, and as it condenses, capture that water and filter it for consumption.
As the cycle continues, the generator’s refrigerant vaporizes and goes through a process that cools it back into a liquid, meaning the heat transfer cycle repeats continuously in an energy-efficient and self-sustaining system.
“I’m sure you’ve had the experience in the summer, you take a glass of a cold drink out of the fridge and then water droplets form on the side of the bottle,” Aquaria’s co-founder and CEO Brian Sheng, said in a podcast episode. “That’s actually condensation.”
Sheng continued: “The question is, how do we create condensation? How do we extract water out of the air in large volume and using little energy? That’s what our technology does. We have created both active and passive cooling methods where we use special materials, and we’ve created heat exchange and recovery systems and airflow design, such that we’re maximizing heat exchange, and then we’re able to extract large volumes of water.”
Aquaria has created a number of generators, but its stand-alone model — the Hydropack X — can replace an entire home’s dependence on municipal water, producing as much as 264 gallons of potable water per day.
Other models, like the Hydrostation, can provide water for up to 1,500 people at parks, construction sites, or other outdoor public areas. The Hydropixel can make 24 gallons of water per day for a seamless at-home application, requiring a simple outlet for power.
“Atmospheric water generators present a groundbreaking solution to the global challenge of clean water scarcity, leveraging the humidity present in the air to produce potable water,” the company’s website explains.
“This technology is versatile, functioning efficiently across diverse climates — from arid regions to tropical settings. From rural communities in developing countries to advanced cities facing unexpected droughts, atmospheric water generators have a wide range of applications… transforming lives and providing secure, clean water sources.”
Considering an estimated 2.2 billion people lack access to clean water globally — including in American cities like Flint, Michigan, or Modesto, California — innovative solutions like AWGs are vital to maintaining the basic human right to clean water.
The World Economic Forum has begun to dip its toes into this technology as well, implementing public and private partnerships to introduce AWG units in Arizona’s Navajo Nation, where the machines produce about 200 gallons of clean water per day.
“When combined with an appropriate level of community engagement and triple-bottom-line business (people, planet, profit),” a blog post for WE Forum said, “this model can be a powerful stopgap solution where few exist today.”
Similarly, according to New Atlas, Aquaria has a partnership with developers to supply its technology to a 1,000-home community in Hawaii later this year, relying entirely on atmospherically generated water.
The company also has a “Frontier Access Program,” which partners with water-related NGOs, community project developers, and sustainable development groups to deploy this technology in areas most in need.
Regardless of their use cases — in homes, in communities facing water shortages, or at aid sites navigating natural disasters — AWGs have a minimal environmental impact. Sourcing water “from thin air,” requires no plastic bottles, no large-scale plants using up loads of energy, and no byproducts that can harm the environment.
For instance, Aquaria’s Hydropixel uses about 1.25 kilowatts of energy per gallon, meaning that producing a gallon of water could cost as little as a few dozen cents. Plus, the newest off-grid solar-powered models of Aquaria’s Hydropack X could bring that cost per gallon even closer to zero.
“This aligns with the principles of sustainable development,” Aqauria’s website states, “as it reduces dependency on depleting groundwater reserves and minimizes ecological footprint.”
While these generators run at a baseline cost of a few thousand dollars, the overall savings they provide could be monumental for residential, hospitality, or business communities.
Most immediately, however, is the potential to save lives.
“Our ambitious goal is to help one million people get access to water out of the air,” Aquaria writes on its website. “We are focused on making atmospheric water harvesting a powerful new tool to build our climate and water resource resilience.”
Header image courtesy of Aquaria Technologies
