Aquahara, a German Solar Atmospheric Water Startup, Achieves a Product Development Milestone on Its Journey Towards Reaching Water Costs of 40 USD Per 1000 Gallons.

Today, Aquahara Technology GmbH from Gilching near Munich, Germany, announced the initial test results of its pilot system using a liquid absorber and solar thermal energy to extract drinking water from air humidity near Marrakech in Morocco. With temperatures around 40 °C and air humidity as low as 25 % during the day, the system can produce 200 liters (50 gallons) of water per day, using 100 square meters (around 1000 square ft) of solar collectors. This means an Aquahara system offers an alternative water supply for millions of house owners who face the challenge of private water wells running dry.

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System components of Aquahara's solar atmospheric water generator (Photo: Business Wire)

Aquahara points out that almost all “water-from-air” devices on the market today are just classical dehumidifiers that cool and condense the air, wasting a lot of electricity. If the electricity is taken from the grid, which is still mostly fossil fuel based, such devices are very harmful to the environment: they effectively burn 1 liter of fossil fuel to produce 5 liters of water. If they are operated with solar panels, their low efficiency requires 200 square meters of solar panels (around 2000 square feet), double the area needed for an Aquahara system. If air humidity is below 40 %, they practically stop working, making them useless in dry climate regions.

Aquahara’s engineers have developed a system with higher efficiency. They use water with a very high concentration of a special salt, potassium acetate, a food additive. The salt ions attract water molecules out of the air. When the air is very dry, they run the absorption process at night, when it is slightly cooler, and store the water in the salt solution tanks. During the day, the system uses solar thermal energy to run the salt solution through a distillation process to extract pure water.

With its next-generation system, Aquahara hopes to reach water costs of 40 USD per 1000 gallons, still much higher than seawater desalination, but cheaper than any competitors and cheaper than water truck delivery in regions that cannot be served by seawater desalination plants.

About Aquahara Technology GmbH

Aquahara Technology GmbH was founded in 2017. With its patent-protected solar atmospheric water generator using a liquid desiccant, it is challenging major players like Source Global PBC, backed by BlackRock and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, who are using solid instead of liquid desiccants. Liquids have the intrinsic technical advantages of better heat transfer and heat recovery, which means they will be essential in further increasing the efficiency and reducing the cost of solar atmospheric water generators.

For more information, visit https://www.aquahara.com

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