Our Solution
AquaBeedl aims to mitigate the water crisis by having small versatile panels that collect water from fog. This isn't new, but what is new is the fact that our fog collector requires zero energy, and minimal maintenance, making it less costly, especially since the vast majority of water scarce communities tend to also be communities of lower income. Our innovation is not only efficient, but also durable and cheap.
​Under the roof edge there is a tilted gutter that collects water from the panels above. The gutter drains into a pipe that flows into a storage tank. The water flow from the storage tank into the house can be regulated by a control valve. Such a control valve allows the homeowner to decide on their usage from the collected water, and can help to maintain water supply during dry spells when collecting water is impractical.
Design
Ridges to collect water
The panels are placed on the roof with the ends flush with the edges of other panels to create one large continuous piece. The moisture in the air is collected by the upwind-facing panels.
Individual Panel
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1 by 2 meters
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Hard plastic panels
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Individual unit to remain versatile
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Storage
Tank
Gutters
This design can also be changed by adding mounts to provide water to roofs without a slope or on the ground.
This design can also be changed by adding mounts to provide water to roofs without a slope or on the ground.
Experiment
We have tested 7 potential panel designs, including several based on the wing cover patterns seen on fog basking beetles. We tested the designs in a contained, 1-cubic-foot box. We used an ultrasonic humidifier to provide rapid and constant supply of misty microscopic water droplets, simulating fog in the natural environment. The experiment is not a perfect analog to real-world conditions, as the relative humidity and the amount of precipitation changes on a daily basis. However, the experiment can still show which design is the most efficient at collecting water. To calculate the amount of rain collected, which was not tested in our experiment, we use one liter per square meter for one millimeter of precipitation. To account for varying conditions, the amount of days per year with favorable conditions is limited to one every four days. This will make sure we are not overestimating the potential of our product. The humidifier’s spout was attached to a slot opening in the box that allows the simulated fog to be blown in. The humidifier ran for 6 hours in each of the experiments. The box allowed us to test up to 2 designs, side-by-side at a time. Except for different panel designs to be tested, all other conditions are kept constant for all the validation experiments.
Experiment I
For the first experiment, the two designs tested are one with small bumps in columns and wax coating in between, and another with no bumps or coating. At the end of the experiment, the designs collected 4 ml and 7 ml of water, respectively.
For the first experiment, the two designs tested are one with small bumps in columns and wax coating in between, and another with no bumps or coating. At the end of the experiment, the designs collected 4 ml and 7 ml of water, respectively.
Experiment II
Our second experiment tested two new designs, one with a flat surface coated with wax, and one with vertical ridges and wax in between the ridges. In this experiment, the designs tested collected 6 ml and 8 ml of water respectively.
For the first experiment, the two designs tested are one with small bumps in columns and wax coating in between, and another with no bumps or coating. At the end of the experiment, the designs collected 4 ml and 7 ml of water, respectively.
Experiment III
In the third experiment we tested two designs: one sanded with 120 grit sandpaper, which collected 4 ml of water, and one that had both uncoated ridges and wax coated ridges, which collected 6 ml of water.
Experiment IV
The final experiment added a design with alternating ridges and bumps, collecting 6 ml of water, and the previous best design, the ridged design, which still collected 8 ml of water.
The Winner?
These experiments were repeated and the amount of water collected was very consistent. We thus arrived at the the conclusion that the design with ridges was the best-performing one. Per our calculation, when the design is scaled up to a typical roof size of 195 m2, AquaBeedl can collect 15 gallons of water over the course of 6 hours. This is calculated from the water collected, or 60 gallons every 24 hours. This calculation is based on days with heavy fog, and assuming that not every day is not this foggy, a whole day output of 15 gallons will be a more conservative estimate. If a rainy day is taken into consideration, as our innovation can collect rain water too, a small amount of rainfall, about 0.1 inch, can collect an additional 130 gallons of water which significantly increases output of our design.
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The frame that the experimental designs were tested on The winning design, the ridged surface