The aim of this unique technology is to turn at least a part of dry and hot desert into a green oasis. The project interconnects experts from UCEEB and from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of CTU with the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences. It will be deployed in practice in the Czech pavilion at the EXPO 2020 world exhibition in Dubai.
S.A.W.E.R. was named by Jiří František Potužník, General Commissioner of the Czech team at the EXPO 2020 exhibition. It is an acronym for Solar Air Water Earth Resource. It is a system of getting water from the air and its specific is autonomous operation. Therefore, its energy need is completely saturated from solar energy.
The developed equipment consists of two parts: the task of one of them is to produce water from the air on a desert, and the other should use the produced water to cultivate the desert. The technology that the University Centre for Energy-Efficient Buildings of the CTU participates in is used in two stages. First, the material (so called desiccant) is used that takes the water content from the outside air and retains it on its surface. The dehydrated air that was modified using the desiccant is brought back to the outside environment so that the system can suck in new portion of the outside air that contains water vapor naturally. This air has to be heated strongly so that water vapor to moisten the desert air can be released from the surface of the desiccant. The thing is that it is possible to get much more water in the next stage using the water cooler than from the air of the outside desert.
According to the experts, S.A.W.E.R. could get as much as 100 liters per day on the average from the air. This is as much as ten times more as compared to other coolers of the desert air. A large garden will be a part of the Czech pavilion at the EXPO 2020 exhibition in Dubai. The garden should use water produced by the system. Two larger pieces of equipment which will together produce up to 500 liters of water are being prepared for the exhibition.
The core of the unit of system for getting water from air is already finished now and the system is being commissioned in the CTU UCEEB laboratories. As a result, its operation in daily and nightly climatic conditions of a desert can be tested. The developed technology is capable of providing water for plants even at places where they are not present normally and to use it in any detached area without a water source.
