Domestic Water Generator

grabcad

I expect the domestic market for this technology will be by far and away the largest market. To quote, "It's not sexy, but it's got teeth." This is a basic concept, that, as drawn has a surface area of over 7.75 square metres. The principle is a number of concentric thin walled tubes that can be dip coated with the self assembling NBD surface. The concept uses a PC fan to push air over the coated element. However, replace the fan with a long tube and erect it in a windy spot, for example a caravanning/camp site or above the gable end of a house, and a natural draw will pull air over the element, similar to the draw in a chimney. The concept assumes a 75cfm fan. If you further assume that the coating is only 80% utilised, that still gives an effective area of about 3 square metres based on the 150cfm requirement. That means 9L per hour from a 1.5m length of 120mm diameter tube (given 70%RH at STP). Even if you don't get a quarter of that efficiency, that could still be in the region of 50L a day. To put it in perspective, assume you use mains electricity to run the fan, which is about 5Wh for 75cfm. Where I live electricity is about GBP0.14 per kWh and water costs about GBP2.2 per cubic metre (GBP0.0022 per L). At 5Wh per 9L, that's about GBP0.00008 per L, or less than 1/25 the cost of mains water. So even at much lower efficiency, you have to go a long way before the water reaches parity in terms of cost. Ok, it's not treated or pumped around, but I'd buy one... or three.