LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – As Southern Nevada continues its water conservation efforts, UNLV hopes to create a solution to Southern Nevada’s water shortage with its new water harvesting device atmospheric water vapor.
Although Jeremy Cho, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UNLV is not the first to move atmospheric water, he specifically wanted to focus on places like Las Vegas with low humidity where we need the technology. this one a lot.
“It still bothers me that this could happen, this doesn’t seem real but it seems like science fiction and it’s like science fiction,” Cho said. “We like to talk about Star Wars a lot because the Skywalkers were moisture farmers and here we are doing it in the Southern Nevada desert. A lot of people ask the question, well, don’t we extract water from the air and that doesn’t have affect the environment? Although it is true that we emit water into the air, you should be aware that we are people who emit water through the net because of the cooling towers and throw a lot of steam into the atmosphere lead to a lot of steam loss, so in many ways, we try to aim for zero steam.
Cho teamed up with Rich Sloan to found WAVR Technologies, the newest start-up at UNLV’s engineering school focused on sustainable water systems.
“Sustainability is a priority for us and of course we are a water company focused on water but we also want to use renewable energy like solar to power this process,” Sloan said. . “So we can’t rely on the grid and not rely on Lake Mead.”
So how does the app work?
“Water is drawn even from this very dry desert air in the first 30 meters in the atmosphere. Here in Clark County, there is enough water to replace 100% of the water demand in this area,” Sloan explained. “When the air passes through this device, it is captured, we add salt water and the result is of pure purified water.”
Sloan said that even in this type of weather, their device can extract a lot of water at humidity levels as low as 10%.
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As Southern Nevada continues its water conservation efforts, UNLV hopes to create a solution to Southern Nevada’s water scarcity with its new atmospheric water vapor harvesting device. (UNLV) -
As Southern Nevada continues its water conservation efforts, UNLV hopes to create a solution to Southern Nevada’s water scarcity with its new atmospheric water vapor harvesting device. (UNLV)
“Ultimately anything we do can’t just be a fun little science experiment, it has to have meaning and something that has an impact on society and that means we have to use this on a large scale and that means we have to be affordable too,” Cho. added.
They are launching this device with several top businesses in mind, including a Fortune 50 beverage company, as well as a medical testing company for home kidney dialysis that requires purified water.
“We’re working with the UNLV campus and the president’s vision to make campus water neutral and replace irrigation water with air,” Sloan said.
The goal is to ensure that regular consumers can get their hands on a device like this in the future.
“So solving the problem of making this very cheap, making this energy efficient, is a real scientific and engineering challenge and I’m happy to continue that work because there is research that a lot to be done,” Cho said.
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