Windpowered compressor to get pure water

[skravlinge]

Did not find out if I should post in wind or water!

Thought of a windturbine to extract water from the air. If the turbine operate a pressure condensator to extract clean water from the moist in the air. The water will be of high and pure quality. I found a cubic meter of water with  70% relative moist can contain about 11 milliliter of water. I dont have the knowledge to figure out how much water it will be produced in a day, but it must be 1000 or more liters on a not so big windmill. Anybody who have been into this before or may be able to see if this is a possible way to get clean , drinking water?

[MelTx]

  Hello Skrav  Perhaps you are thinking of something like an air conditioner..They work because of closed loop presure difference..when air is blown across the evaperator (cold radiator)the ambiant air gives up its moisture...This is a form of distilling..If some care were taken to clean the evaparator outside the water could be drinkable..Study the way an airconditioner works and you will see what I mean.

                                  Hope this helps            MelTx

[skravlinge]

The pressure condensator I think about, may be just  like an airconditioner.

The main purpouse of an airconditioner is to  make the air colder, and thats takes a lot of power.  There are devices working to dry the air and it may be closer to the thing I think off. As the air keep water by the temperature, and pressure it may be possible to do it  using less energy than a airconditioner have.  If a  compressed gas pressed out of a ventil it cool very fast, and then water will condensing. (Blow at your hand with  your mouth open as much you can, the air is the same temperature as in mouth, but if you  blow with your mouth so it is a narrow round passage for the air it feels cold). Its  system like this I was thinking about. Mabe its better ways. If a lot of air  gives a part of its moist, it should be quite a lot, and a windmill could do the work.

[jimjjnn]

Also a home dehumidifier may work. It has filters(I believe)

It has a small refrigeration compressor in it. You might hae to make a sort of cabinet to your own specifications. Shouldn't be too hard to do. You would have to clean it as it might get a build up of mold and other nasty things but you have to do that with any unit. You may want to add an ultraviole(UV) water purifier to also purify the water.

There are many UV units on the internet. Just type in water purification. Ignore some of the garbage that is also on some sites.

[bob golding]

dehumidifiers do produce a lot of water. around 2 litres a day in an average home for the first week or so. i have several lying around waiting for me to get around to repairing them. they draw around 200/500 watts. i dont know but i suspect there are better less complicated ways to produce  drinking water. solar ponds are proberly a better choice.  think it would work if you could find a commpressor unit that was suitable but sounds like it could get real complex real fast.

bob golding

now with enough diesel to  stay online a bit longer. still using the led laptop battery light as a reading light. lasts around 3 days before it needs a recharge.

[Flying Z]

Hi skravlinge, I would go with the solar pond. One thing i have wanted to try but havn'nt yet is to make a hoop house type structure with pvc pipes covered in clear plactic over a water source like a canal. If you have enough sunlight then you should get a fast enough rate of evaperation wich would run down the sides of the plastic into collection troughs. But like i said i havn't tried it yet. As far as compressing air to extract water, every one that owns a Air compressor knows that you must occasionaly drain the water out of the tank. I don't know about drinking it though. Good luck, Randy

[MelTx]

  Hello    Or you could take a small chest type household freezer and use that as a cooler....With a resivoir of water in the cooler,circulating in a closed loop inside copper pipe.With clean coils of copper pipe cilculating the same water from cold to warm outside of the box with a small pump.When the cold water from inside the freezer contacted the warm air on the outside of the box,it will condense the water in the air.Catch this condensed water for drinking.The more pipe exposed to the outside air -the more water you would get.The cost to run this would be the cost to run the freezer.

[electrondady1]

it might not be practical but how about recombining the hyrogen and oxygen from electrolisis . is't the product of there combustion water? you could start with any old undrinkable muck and end up with pure water.

[skravlinge]

I know it is  billions of square meters of water in the air, and air is everywhere.

There are systems to get water from the air, just get a search on the net. They claim their high cost devices can make water to a "cheap"  price. The uses of it today, is to supply soldiers in dry desserts with water (when you do it in this case  you not care the cost so much, but the lack of fuel make it less usefull). I suspect the methods can be used on a more or less homemade device, which people in places with bad water can do with local craftmanship. A lot of the worlds inhabitants have water for everything else but drinking, and bad water is a  major problem to the health in many areas.  I  image a  windmill could use a simple device to  compress the air to produce clean water, to an amount it  could supply the drinking and get local power over it.

[bob golding]

the main problem with dirty water is filtration,which needs energy to get useful amounts of drinking water. i have a system that uses a sludge filter followed by a pump  followed by a carbon filter a sub micron filter a a uv steraliser. the pump draws about 4 amps at 12 volts and the uv about 40 watts a 240 volts. i run the whole thing off a  car battery  which could be charged from a wind turbine. not saying it is the best way of doing it but it is simple and reliable. think it does about 2000 gallons before the filters need changing. the other method is  reverse osmosis which could also be powered from a windturbine. read somewhere a couple of years ago that putting a  transparant bottle full of water in the sun for a couple of hours at 50 degrees will steralise it. most water pollution illnesses are caused by ignorance rather than lack of technology.  kicks soapbox away and wishes everyone a happy new year.

bob golding

[skravlinge]

Reverse osmosis is working for small Islands, they are close to (salt) vater. Ten years ago I made a cheap apparatus which mainly looks as a simple pump, press the water powered by a rubber ball floating up and down by the waves. The filter was able to produce about 6 liters a day on each device.  It is not more in use as the watersupply comes by boat, but its a  good for the locals  whats to do if it is a failure in supply or they try to mock with the prices. This  test was performed in the Pacific , with assistance of the Baptist Mission Education Centre at the place.

[jimjjnn]

Best time to collect water at night when very little power is needed. Water condenses on my car windows every night.

 Just think, with cold vertical plate with a trough at the bottom, how much can you collect. Give it a try. You can also have it collect in a bottle to see the turbidity in the morning.

Easy no cost experiment. You probably have everything now at home. Glass copper pipe(or other type),bottles .No cost experimentation

[bob golding]

mmm large areas of vertical glass with a trough at the bottom? sounds like i might be able to find some of those without looking too far. i live in a (yet to be) converted coach with around 80 ft  by 4 foot of glass drippng condensation as we speak. will try and measure  the quantity of water from one window just to find out. i can collect enough rain water most of the year from about 20 sq ft of roof for my needs except in high summer.

bob golding

[NukeManSoon]

why not dig a hole and run some copper tubing through the ground and condense the water through the tubes, the air pressure should blow the water out the other side.