AWARD YEAR
2019
CATEGORY
Community
GOALS
Clean Water & Sanitation
KEYWORDS
water shortage, clean drinking water
COUNTRY
United States of America
DESIGNED BY
Brook Kennedy, Industrial Designer and Associate Professor, Industrial Design, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Dr. Jonathan Boreyko, Assistant Professor, Biomedical engineering and Mechanics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Weiwei Shi, Doctoral Student, Biomedical engineering and Mechanics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Josh Tulkoff, Industrial Designer and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University alumnus.
WEBSITE
http://www.brookkennedy.com/#/fogharp-water-from-thin-air/
Fog Harp
Fog Harp is a novel fog harvesting design capable of collecting 3 times more potable water
Access to water is essential to life on earth. Global reports forecast an imminent future where more than a billion people face water scarcity. What is taken for granted in developed nations is a struggle elsewhere, in countries including Chile, South Africa, Morocco, Oman, the Canary Islands, Nepal and others. Today communities in these arid regions use fog harvesting, the process of collecting water for drinking and agriculture from moving fog. Our Fog Harp design relies on a specialized economical vertical wire array material which has been scientifically proven to collect as much as three times more water than current used mesh materials. Where mesh materials can clog with water droplets, our harp purges droplets itself. The material is scalable and mass producible and currently in development. For communities without potable water sources, Fog Harp can help provide much needed drinking and agricultural water that exceeds World Health Organization standards for cleanliness.