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Self-filling water bottle turns humidity into drinking water for cyclists

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Re: Self-filling water bottle turns humidity into drinking water for cyclists

#21

Post by danjruss »

pmontra wrote: post #9

Half a liter in a few hours is way less than a cyclist needs. This is renewable and a bottle isn't but I can pack much more water in the volume of the device and get other water when I stop. If I can't find water maybe I'm in bigger troubles than half a liter can save me from (in a desert, really?). It's not worth it. However, put a bigger device on a car or on a boat and that can be useful.

I'd imagine the rate at which the water can be collected can increase with more development of the product. Sure, there's a limit at which you're taking all the moisture out of the air, but I'm sure there's more than enough to fill a bottle over the course of an hour of riding.

Where my curiosity lies is in energy consumption. There's a power button on it obviously, so how much power does it use? I'm not an expert in thermodynamics/rates of condensation but I know my dehumidifier is a freakin power hog and it's doing exactly the same thing as this. My guess is that power consumption is the biggest hurdle here.

Re: Self-filling water bottle turns humidity into drinking water for cyclists

#22

Post by alpha229 »

pmontra wrote: post #9

Half a liter in a few hours is way less than a cyclist needs. This is renewable and a bottle isn't but I can pack much more water in the volume of the device and get other water when I stop. If I can't find water maybe I'm in bigger troubles than half a liter can save me from (in a desert, really?). It's not worth it. However, put a bigger device on a car or on a boat and that can be useful.

Products such as these already exist and produce around 30-75 liters/day [1].

[1] http://www.water-gen.com/product-water-generator.html and

Re: Self-filling water bottle turns humidity into drinking water for cyclists

#23

Post by saalweachter »

Someone wrote: post #7
mslev wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see this being pretty useful for long touring rides, where you're riding for a long time but not necessarily pushing very hard.

"After more than 30 experiments, I finally achieved a constant drop-flow of one drop of condensed water per minute" Guessing the diameter of a drop at 1mm, and assuming it to be cubic, that is 60 cubic mm per hour. Rounding up, we get 1 cc per hour. A U.S. teaspoon is just under 5 cc. Alternatively, get a small cup of water every 24 hours. There can be about 30 cc of water in a cubic meter of air, so you would have t…

Looking at the diagrams, it looks like the opening is ~1/4 for air to condense water from and ~3/4 for air to pass over cooling fins to power the condenser, but 1/4 is less than your factor of ten.

I'm guessing this is limited by how much cooling you can get out of it.

Re: Self-filling water bottle turns humidity into drinking water for cyclists

#26

Post by Havoc »

pmontra wrote: post #9

Half a liter in a few hours is way less than a cyclist needs. This is renewable and a bottle isn't but I can pack much more water in the volume of the device and get other water when I stop. If I can't find water maybe I'm in bigger troubles than half a liter can save me from (in a desert, really?). It's not worth it. However, put a bigger device on a car or on a boat and that can be useful.

>Half a liter in a few hours is way less than a cyclist needs.

I guess you can use it to top up then. e.g. Bring 1 litre instead of the 2 & rely on this to cover the shortfall.

>It's not worth it.

Not yet. Cutting edge near prototype stuff rarely is "worth it".

Re: Self-filling water bottle turns humidity into drinking water for cyclists

#27

Post by mikeash »

e12e wrote: post #14
Icybee wrote: post #13

If you cycle through areas with a lot of traffic, could the water end up contaminated with vehicle exhaust?

I'm pretty sure most harmful exhaust would be more harmful when breathed in, than when drunk?

In the same concentrations, I'm sure that's true, but the collection process will also concentrate pollutants quite a bit.

Re: Self-filling water bottle turns humidity into drinking water for cyclists

#30

Post by lern_too_spel »

Someone wrote: post #7
mslev wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see this being pretty useful for long touring rides, where you're riding for a long time but not necessarily pushing very hard.

"After more than 30 experiments, I finally achieved a constant drop-flow of one drop of condensed water per minute" Guessing the diameter of a drop at 1mm, and assuming it to be cubic, that is 60 cubic mm per hour. Rounding up, we get 1 cc per hour. A U.S. teaspoon is just under 5 cc. Alternatively, get a small cup of water every 24 hours. There can be about 30 cc of water in a cubic meter of air, so you would have t…

Straight from the article:

"Under the right climatic conditions, Fontus can easily produce half a liter of water in an hour's time."

We already know that it can produce half a liter per hour, but those same climatic conditions are when a cyclist needs significantly more than half a liter per hour.

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