Engineers Inspired by 'Star Wars' Make Water From Thin Air. Here's How They Pulled off the Miracle
Climate change has led to major changes across the globe including extreme climate events, drought, heatwaves and floods. One of the most visible consequences of this drastic transformation is the scarcity of water in several parts of the world. The problem also arises due to improper management of freshwater resources which leads to insufficient quantity of water for drinking and agriculture. While there are several factors contributing to severe water shortage during the warmer months, a team of engineers from Kerala, India has tapped into science fiction for inspiration to solve the issue.
Kozhikode city of Kerala faced challenging times due to the unavailability of fresh water in the region, and engineering student Swapnil Shrivastav was also affected as he was receiving only two buckets of water a day just like his neighbors. Shrivastav had won a student competition a few years ago where his subject was tackling water scarcity and he had used a hypothetical template from the original "Star Wars" film, reported BBC. He decided to implement his knowledge and ideas by assembling a team of three who harvested water from the humid air.
“One element of inspiration was from Star Wars where there’s an air-to-water device. I thought why don’t we give it a try? It was more of a curiosity project,” he told BBC. For those who are not familiar with the device that inspired Shrivastav's design, the official "Star Wars" website mentions that it is called the "moisture vaporator." "Found on desert planets, moisture vaporators were stationary devices that could collect moisture from even the driest of atmosphere," the description on the website read. Those machines worked on the fictional Tatooine planet where the "Star Wars" protagonist Luke Skywalker grew up.
The fictional device is used to extract moisture from the air by means of refrigerated condensers, which generate low-energy ionization fields. Captured water is then pumped or gravity-directed into a storage cistern that adjusts its pH levels. Vaporators were capable of collecting 1.5 liters of water per day, so Shrivastav and his colleagues Govinda Balaji and Venkatesh Raja launched Uravu Labs, a Bangalore-based startup in 2019. They initially created a machine that converts air to water with the help of a liquid desiccant by absorbing moisture from the air as sunlight or renewable energy heated the desiccant to 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Then the moisture is captured into a chamber where it is condensed and converted into drinking water. The entire conversion process takes up to 12 hours and can produce about 500 gallons of drinking-quality water per day. “We had to shift to commercial consumption applications as they were ready to pay us and it’s a sustainability driver for them,” Shrivastav explained to BBC. The Uravu Labs continues to produce water for 40 different hospitality clients.
“We don’t use plastic bottles, we exclusively utilize glass packaging. Our innovative reverse logistics model ensures that all glass bottles are returned to us for cleaning, refilling, and reuse. This model mirrors the system employed by beverage giants like Coke or Pepsi two decades ago,” Shrivastav further told News18. “In Bangalore, we have already sold almost 3.5 lakh bottles in the last 8 months. This means that we already have a customer base that has tried our water, tasted our water, and is getting aware of the concept as well as quality." Now the trio's goal is to survive in the competitive market and make their products more affordable for consumers.