A new device that sits inside a shipping container can use clean energy to almost instantly bring clean drinking water anywhere–the rooftop of an apartment building in Nairobi, a disaster zone after a hurricane in Manila, a rural village in Zimbabwe–by pulling water from the air. The design, from the Skysource/Skywater Alliance, just won $1.5 million in the Water Abundance XPrize . The competition, which launched in 2016, asked designers to build a device that could extract at least 2,000 liters of water a day from the atmosphere (enough for the daily needs of around 100 people), use clean energy, and cost no more than 2¢ a liter. “We do a lot of first principles thinking at XPrize when we start designing these challenges,” says Zenia Tata, who helped launch the prize and serves as chief impact officer of XPrize. Nearly 800 million people face water scarcity; other solutions, like desalination, are expensive. Freshwater is limited and exists in a closed system. But the atmosphere, the team realized, could be tapped as a resource. “At any given time, it holds 12 quadrillion gallons–the number 12 with 19 zeros after it–a very, very, big number,” she says. The household needs […]
A device that can pull drinking water from the air just won the latest XPrize

Latest Articles
Chennai resident sights two rare warblers at home on the same day
A Large-billed Leaf Warbler sighted in the greenery at an apartment complex in Pallikaranai on April 3, 2021. Photo: Sundaravel Palanivelu The city falls...
Calling All Volunteers for The Great Global Cleanup 2021
Our planet’s waterways, green spaces, and communities and are overflowing with litter . The problem is bigger than any individual can handle; it...
The solution to California’s rampant sea urchin problem is to eat them. I gave...
“Babe! I sprayed mouth everywhere!” I never thought I’d find myself screaming these words on a tranquil Sunday morning in my tiny San...
Wayanad sanctuary a haven for Asiatic wild dog
Dhole or Asiatic wild dog, an endangered large carnivore, in the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary. Study finds the sanctuary is host to nearly 50 individuals...
UK launches world’s largest ocean monitoring system
The U.K. government, under the Blue Belt program , has announced its plan to install underwater camera rigs for monitoring ocean wildlife in...
These endangered monkeys kept getting hit by cars. Scientists had a clever solution.
Zanzibar red colobuses (Piliocolobus kirkii) are one of the most endagered species of African primates. (Image credit: Tim R. B. Davenport) Endangered primates that...