Uganda: Scientists far with water harvesting

  1. Posted on Wednesday 28 May 2008 - 16:47
    mugira
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    Fredrick Mugira, AfricaNews reporter in Mbarara, Uganda, photo: Lindsay Stark
    Scientists are working on a water harvesting system to recycle steam from cooling towers and allowing buildings to collect their own water supplies from the air. The study is inspired by the way the Namib Desert Beetle of Namibia harvests water from desert fogs.
    Sierra20.jpg
    Scientists are working on a water harvesting system to recycle steam from cooling towers and allowing buildings to collect their own water supplies from the air.

    The study is inspired by the way the Namib Desert Beetle of Namibia harvests water from desert fogs.

    The beetle lives in a location that receives a mere half an inch of rain a year yet can harvest water from fogs that blow in gales across the land several mornings each month.

    Now a team of scientists from the University of Oxford and the UK defense research firm QinetiQ have designed a surface that mimics the water-attracting bumps and water-shedding valleys on the beetle’s wing scales that allows the insect to collect and funnel droplets thinner than a human hair.

    The patchwork surface hinges on small, poppy-seed sized glass spheres in a layer of warm wax that tests show work like the beetle’s wing scales.

    A news statement from the UN environment watchdog, UNEP reveals that trials have now been carried out to use the beetle film to capture water vapor from cooling towers. Initial tests have shown that the invention can return 10 per cent of lost water and lead to cuts in energy bills for nearby buildings by reducing a city’s heat sink effect.

    The news release says that other researchers, some with funding from the US Defense Advanced Research Agency, are mimicking the beetle water collection system to develop tents that collect their own water up to surfaces that will ‘mix’ reagents for ‘lab-on-a-chip’ applications.

    By 2025, the United Nations forecasts that 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with water scarcity and two thirds of the world’s population could be under conditions of water stress. Climate change is expected to aggravate water problems via more extreme weather events.

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