New Windmill makes water from the air.

Max Whisson of Western Australia has developed a new type of windmill that actually extracts water from the air.

There's a lot of water in the air. It rises from the surface of the oceans to a height of almost 100 kilometers. You feel it in high humidity, but there's almost as much invisible moisture in the air above the Sahara or the Nullarbor as there is in the steamy tropics. The water that pools beneath an air-conditioned car, or in the tray under an old fridge, demonstrates the principle: cool the air and you get water. And no matter how much water we might take from the air, we’d never run out. Because the oceans would immediately replace it.
Usually a windmill has three blades facing into the wind. But Whisson’s design has many blades, each as aerodynamic as an aircraft wing, and each employing “lift” to get the device spinning. They don't face into the wind like a conventional windmill; they're arranged vertically, within an elegant column, and take the wind from any direction.

With three or four of Max’s magical machines on hills at our farm we could fill the tanks and troughs, and weather the drought. One small Whisson windmill on the roof of a suburban house could keep your taps flowing. Biggies on office buildings, whoppers on skyscrapers, could give independence from the city's water supply. And plonk a few hundred in marginal outback land – specifically to water tree-lots – and you could start to improve local rainfall.

The principle behind this new windmill, is that when air is cooled water condenses out. The new Whisson windmill uses aerodynamically designed blades in such a manner that the air cools as it passes over them. Not only does it produce water but it needs no power to run other than a slight movement of the air. It will begin spinning far before conventional windmills start to turn.

This new technology promises great opportunities for dry areas as well as significant cost savings around the globe.

Link to full story: Water From Wind

I understand the idea of condensation/dew point, we use commercial dehumidifiers in homes to dry them after they are flooded. A single dehu that we use can remove over 30 gallons of water a day from the air in the home.

Dewpoint

The dew point or dew point of a given parcel of air is the temperature to which the parcel must be cooled, at constant barometric pressure, for the water vapor component to condense into water, called dew.

To get down to the dew point in the Sahara Desert (as in the quote) when the temperature is, say, 109* Fahrenheit with a RH humidity of 15% (not really sure of actual humidity in the Sahara in the daytime), you would have to drop the temperature down to 51* Fahrenheit (Dewpoint Calculator) to just start to get some condensation and creating water.

Same Wikipedia Source

Note that with higher temperatures the equilibrium partial pressure of water vapor increases thus more water evaporates.

You would also have to keep the water you are collecting in some sort of closed system, otherwise it would evaporate probably almost as fast as you could collect it.

Somehow he says he does it with windmill power, it takes a lot of energy to cool coils in 109* heat to 50* or less.

I have no idea how it would be done.

Maybe just plug huge dehumidifiers up to windmills that can produce electricity, using the electricity to run the dehumidifiers to produce the water.



[edit on 30/1/07 by Keyhole]

I agree this sounds to good to be true. If you think about it, any turbine even one designed like the wing of a plane will have friction from the air which turns to heat (though it would not be much) would keep water from condensing on it. It would be the opposite of what this guy claims.

The only way I can see this work would be to have the turbine attached to a compressor and circulate coolant to condense the water. Sounds interesting and I hope it's true.

The blades are probably made to be similar to a beetles back.

Water off a beetle's back

The beetle has a bumpy surface on its back. The troughs are coated with wax, which makes them water-repelling (hydrophobic). But the peaks are non-greasy and water loving (hydrophilic).

When a sea breeze blows over, the beetle leans into the wind.

Tiny droplets of water are attracted to the hydrophilic peaks, where they build up into larger drops, which eventually roll down the beetle's back towards its mouth.

Thus, the beetle has a ready source of drinking water even though it seldom rains.

The bushmen of the Khalahari place a leaf on the ground at night, let due accumulate and drink the resulting aggregate. This is the sort of idea presented here. It won't work. Homes would require water treatment facilities, constant maintenance and something to keep the pressure going.

Having said that, the technology exists already to have your home installed with pipes leading from a water tower. You won't have to worry about testing pH.

Found this while still digging around Wikipedia and thought I'd post it for all.

It is actually a dehumidifier that you can buy that produces drinking water.

Wikipedia - Atmospheric Water Generator

An Atmospheric water generator (AWG) is a machine that produces pure drinking water from the humidity of the surrounding air. An AWG operates in a manner very similar to that of a refrigerated dehumidifier: air is passed through a cooled coil, causing water to condense. The amount of water that can be produced depends on the humidity, the volume of air passing through the coils, and the size of the machine.

Considerations

*Needs no water source, only air.
*Can generate from 20 litres to over 250.000 litres or more in 24 hours.
*Is designed for maximum cost efficiency.
*Contains no harmful minerals or chemicals
*Can be powered by solar, wind, dyno or aqua electrical generation systems.
A wide range of Atmospheric generators are available, from a home/office unit producing 28 litres a day, to 1200 litres and even more than 500.000 litres per day for industrial bottling plants.

Details

The cost effectiveness of an atmospheric water generator depends on the capacity of the machine as well as on humidity and temperature conditions.

Besides such machines can be powered by alternative energy like solar, wind or even gas or oil fired generators which can be of great help especially when such machines are put into operation for relief efforts.

I am starting to believe that "Making Water From Wind" may just be a way of using wind mill power to produce electricity to power large dehu's.

They would have to be VERY large dehumidifiers to help communities in drought stricken areas irrigate crops.

Still doesn't seem very feasible though.



[edit on 30/1/07 by Keyhole]

From what I understand, the process has nothing to do with generating power to run a condenser. It has to do with the shape of the wind vanes and how the air flows across them utilizing the Bernoulli cooling effect.

Change in velocity=change in pressure. Pressure change results in temperature change, which results in condensation. More or less.

As this was reported in a respected news source I do not think it is phony.

[edit on 30-1-2007 by Terapin]

I don't see any reason to be skeptical. A clever combination of hydrophilic/phobic regions on a blades surface could produce ample amounts of water through condensation.

Nature does it all the time. We've just recently attained the ability to engineer surfaces to mimic this ability. See the link I provided above.

Originally posted by Terapin
From what I understand, the process has nothing to do with generating power to run a condenser. It has to do with the shape of the wind vanes and how the air flows across them utilizing the Bernoulli cooling effect.

Sorry, I guess I did go off in the wrong direction then.

I did read the article before I started posting, but I guess I just missed this paragraph.

Water from wind

The secret of Max’s design is how his windmills, whirring away in the merest hint of a wind, cool the air as it passes by. Like many a great idea, it couldn’t be simpler – or more obvious. But nobody thought of it before.

But, like I showed in my first post, it takes a lot of cooling to get to the dew point in most cases to start collecting condensation, unless you are in a very humid area..

I'm clueless at how this might work.

This has kind of peaked my interest so I did a little searching and came up with a couple websites.

In the website below, he describes a saltwater evaporation system to produce fresh water.

Water Unlimited

All material on this site is © 2003 Max Whisson

And here is another article similiar to the original article of this thread.

Whisson Windmills To Water Australia Like Vaporators?

Whisson's design consists of a number of blades arranged vertically, accepting wind from any direction. The process is a closely guarded secret, but the device manages to cool the air as it passes - pulling water out by condensation.

Frankly, I'm sceptical of a story that has so little substance to it. However, Whisson does have a history as an inventor; he suggested the idea of long evaporation channels in 2002.

If Max Whisson really does have a windmill that pulls water right out of the air without additional electricity, he may just have invented the moisture vaporator. Widely used in the deserts of the fictional world of Tatooine, it makes farming work where it would ordinarily fail.

I wonder if he has found a way to simply force air (increasing vapor pressure) through a bunch of fins (like the fins on HVAC coils) somehow causing condensation with only a slight drop in temperature thanks to the "windmill".

I am starting to think they are not forthcoming with how this technology/system works is because it is so simple anybody could build a system similiar to it once the mechanics of how it works is known publicly.


[edit on 31/1/07 by Keyhole]

He has stated that he is not giving out much detail yet until a patent is granted. He said that he doesnt want a big corperation to figure it out and patent it first as he intends to give away the design so it will be free for anyone to make. If a big company got a hold of the patent first they would charge you an arm and a leg for it. He Just wants to help the world.

Originally posted by Terapin
He has stated that he is not giving out much detail yet until a patent is granted.
. If a big company got a hold of the patent first they would charge you an arm and a leg for it. He Just wants to help the world.

As anybody would. .

I have taken a couple of courses that deal with Psychrometrics, I am no expert on the matter though have just making observations on how I think (with my limited knowledge of psychrometrics) on how he might achieve this by simply using a modified windmill.

Originally posted by Terapin
He said that he doesnt want a big corperation to figure it out and patent it first as he intends to give away the design so it will be free for anyone to make.

He sounds like a man who wants the best for all humanity and I wish there were more people like him.

Originally posted by TerapinIf a big company got a hold of the patent first they would charge you an arm and a leg for it. He Just wants to help the world.

Definitely, somehow, sadly they probably still will find a way.

I haven't been trying to dismiss the claims of his "new system of water from air". I hope it is cheap to build and maintain and will help a lot of the drought stricken areas of the world.

I do have a feeling though that he figured out a simple technique to do this, and I hope it embarrasses the science community for not figuring it out long ago.

Originally posted by Terapin
He has stated that he is not giving out much detail yet until a patent is granted. He said that he doesnt want a big corperation to figure it out and patent it first as he intends to give away the design so it will be free for anyone to make. If a big company got a hold of the patent first they would charge you an arm and a leg for it. He Just wants to help the world.

if you read the patent you will find that it is a simple and viable idea.


Simply put he designed a fan blad with freon tubes ON THE BLADES. The blades are turned by the wind and that motion compresses the freon which travels over the baldes as it uncompresses thus colling the blades and the air going through them.

Because the wind directly powers the refrigeration of the air it is much better than a windmill powering a seaprate cooling system.


Furthermore even the driest desert air has lots of water in it. When it is cooled enough it drops that water out even if it is only 3 percent humidity!


we need more people like him.

we should support him...try to get government funding...

also stage a publicity stunt in a city square to get this support...

so many millionaires and billionaires out there who clutch the cash to their chest til the last dying breath...

[edit on 13-7-2007 by esecallum]