By Gurmukh Singh, IANS,
Toronto : There is cheering news for the water-thirsty world! A Canadian company claims to have developed a device that will pull water out of thin air to end thirst around the world.
British Columbia-based Element Four said the device, called Watermill, can create enough clean and fresh water to overcome the global crisis. Each device will pull 13 litres out of air using the natural condensation process, company officials said.
It will reportedly use coils to squeeze water out of the natural humidity in the air, they said.
“This is the next microwave,” Richard Weisbeck, director of product development at Element Four, told Canadian TV.
He said the company will sell about 25,000 devices in 2009.
Without mentioning its price, he said the production and sale will increase to several hundred thousands in the next three years.
“It will take a little while for people to get comfortable with the magic of water from air, but the need is certainly there,” company president Jonathan Ritchey was quoted as saying.
The company, which presented its invention at the United Nations recently, said the device will not only make millions of dollars in revenue for it but also solve the water crisis in the third world countries.
The device adapts to the conditions where it is installed, and will do it more efficiently than anything that has been invented before it, company officials told the news channel.
They said their first target market is people spending money on bottled water.
Currently when the big five-litre water containers cost about ten cents a litre to produce, they said, they can create water for three cents a litre.
The device will hit the market next spring, they said.