Atmospheric Water Generator: Making Air Drinkable
Problem Statement In this era of increased global warming and rapid weather changes, Pakistan is heading towards a major water crisis. Reports by United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as well as the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) has alerted that
2025-06-28 16:30:19 - Adil Khan
Atmospheric Water Generator: Making Air Drinkable
Project Area of Specialization Internet of ThingsProject SummaryProblem Statement
In this era of increased global warming and rapid weather changes, Pakistan is heading towards a major water crisis. Reports by United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as well as the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) has alerted that the country will reach absolute water scarcity by the year 2025. Many areas in Karachi are already facing this issue where people are dying each day due to lack of water. Our only two available sources of water i.e. rain water (in the form of lakes/rivers/seas) and underground water are either drying up or becoming insufficient due to the increased demand and wastage of water each day.
In this urgent need of the hour, we have developed a device that will create a third source of water for mankind: “Air”. This device utilizes the humid air from the atmosphere, extracts pure water from it and promises to fulfil the daily water requirements of an average home.
Introduction & Background
According to research, the atmosphere consists of approximately 3400 trillion gallons of water at any given time, which would be enough to cover the entire surface of Earth in 1 inch of water. As Pakistan is a country with medium to high humidity levels, water extraction from the atmosphere can be a valuable asset.
The modern technologies being used for atmospheric water generation are wet desiccation and cooling condensation. Wet desiccation method uses desiccants such as brine solution and silica gel to absorb moisture content and collect water but this method works only in areas of lower humidity levels. Hence, we use the method of cooling condensation to develop Atmospheric Water Generators (AWGs) which are one of the very effective ways that promises pure water generation. AWG’s work on the principle of vapor compression refrigeration to extract water from surrounding humid air. The water obtained from this process is free of pollutants and is much purer than underground water.
Project ObjectivesObjectives
Atmospheric Water Generators will contribute to the access of pure drinkable water in remote areas where high infrastructure, installation cost and a lot of time is needed. In today’s world where depletion of existing resources is another issue being faced, AWG’s come in handy providing additional potable water. Therefore, AWG’s are powerful enough to handle the lack of potable water especially in areas where drinking water is scarce. Our main motivation for undertaking this project was to solve Pakistan’s water crisis by setting up independent, stand-alone AWG units which would cater to a man’s basic water requirements. So far, no AWGs have actually been implemented nationwide. However, there are many successful examples of Atmospheric Water generators the world over.
The installation of AWGs offers a quick and small-scale solution to water crisis as it will:
- Provide sufficient water daily (approx. 30 litres per day)
- Reduce cost (Only a one-time investment)
- Conserve power (Utilizes only 500W energy)
- Utilize natural resources (Air)
- Act as a stand-alone unit (will be integrated with solar to fulfil energy requirements)
Process
Vapor Compression Refrigeration System generates fresh drinking water and also extracts water from humid ambient air by using cooling condensation process. In cooling condensation based AWG, a compressor circulates refrigerant through a condenser and an evaporator coil which cools the air surrounding it, reducing the dew point of air and causing water to condense. A controlled fan speed pushes filtered air over the coil.
Implementation Method
After going through all the available options, we finally concluded that we would use a vapor-compression refrigeration based AWG because of its advantages over other methods.
The vapor-compression consists of a circulating liquid refrigerant as the medium which absorbs and removes heat from the space to be cooled and subsequently rejects that heat to the atmosphere. Basically, the system has four components: a compressor, a condenser, a thermal expansion valve, and an evaporator. Circulating refrigerant enters the compressor as saturated vapor and is compressed. This results in high pressure which in turn is responsible for higher temperature. The compressed vapor then comes out as super-heated vapor and attains a temperature and pressure at which condensation can take place with the help of cooling water or cooling air. That hot vapor is passed through a condenser where it is cooled and condensed. This is where the circulating refrigerant rejects heat from the system. The condensed liquid refrigerant known as saturated liquid is next passed through an expansion valve where there is a sudden drop in pressure. This results in an adiabatic flash evaporation of the liquid refrigerant. The Joule-Thompson effect as it is called lowers the temperature of the liquid and vapor refrigerant mixture which makes it colder than the temperature to be achieved. The cold mixture is passed through the coils in the evaporator. A fan circulates the warm air in the enclosed space across the coils carrying the cold refrigerant liquid and vapor mixture. That warm air evaporates the liquid part of the cold refrigerant and at the same time, the circulating air is cooled and as a result it lowers the temperature of the enclosed space to the temperature to be achieved. The circulating refrigerant absorbs and removes heat from the evaporator which is then rejected in the condenser and transferred by the water or air in the condenser. For the completion of refrigeration cycle, the refrigerant vapor coming out of the evaporator which is again a saturated vapor is returned back into the compressor.
We wish to include a monitoring system based on a control unit to integrate several sensors like humidity and temperature so as to get real-time and accurate measurements to avoid problems like frost generation, compressor or any other component failure, etc. We will use a 300W solar panel integrated with a 250W Micro-Inverter to supply power to the system as well to make it a stand-alone unit.
Benefits of the ProjectBenefits of Atmospheric Water Generators
Atmospheric Water Generators will contribute to the access of pure drinkable water in remote areas where high infrastructure, installation cost and a lot of time is needed. In today’s world where depletion of existing resources is another issue being faced, AWG’s come in handy providing additional potable water. Therefore, AWG’s are powerful enough to handle the lack of potable water especially in areas where drinking water is scarce. Our main motivation for undertaking this project was to solve Pakistan’s water crisis by setting up independent, stand-alone AWG units which would cater to a man’s basic water requirements. So far, no AWGs have actually been implemented nationwide. However, there are many successful examples of Atmospheric Water generators the world over.
The installation of AWGs offers several benefits such as:
- Solving water scarcity problem in many areas of Pakistan
- Providing a third reliable source of water which is independant of the existing depleting resources
- Making pure water accessible and cheap for every person
- Reduces death rate caused by lack of access to clean water
Block Diagram:
Flowchart:
Tachincal Details:
The Atmospheric Water Generator will have the following specifications:
- It will extract water from air using a 100-300W compressor and evaporating coils.
- It will have a user interface (keypad and LCD) for entering the amount of water required by the user that day or for communicating messages to alert the user.
- It will use 3 types of sensors: temperature, humidity and water level sensors to detect system readings and wil store these readings in the database.
- It will generate alerts in case of internal or external faults and shutdown on its own
| Item Name | Type | No. of Units | Per Unit Cost (in Rs) | Total (in Rs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total in (Rs) | 69382 | |||
| AWG | Equipment | 1 | 30000 | 30000 |
| Sensors | Equipment | 8 | 300 | 2400 |
| Control Unit | Equipment | 1 | 2000 | 2000 |
| User interface | Equipment | 2 | 2991 | 5982 |
| Packaging | Equipment | 1 | 15000 | 15000 |
| PCB fabrication | Equipment | 2 | 2000 | 4000 |
| Others | Miscellaneous | 10 | 1000 | 10000 |