Channel: Boston University

Category: Education

Tags: student innovationstudent research projectwater harvesterstudent researchstudent life at bubu engineering studentengineeringbu engineering student researchaccess to potable waterbu engineeringbu engineering student final projectmake water from airbuscience & technologysenior design projectboston university

Description: Hundreds of millions of people have no potable water. This group of Boston University College of Engineering students is attempting to come up with an innovative way to address the crisis: creating a water harvester that would pull moisture from the air to provide potable water without great effort or expense. Team members Gayatri Sundar Rajan (ENG’22), Tess Ravick (ENG'22), Carla Sheridan (ENG'22), and Trevor Melsheimer (ENG'22) created the water harvester as their required ENG Senior Design Project. For Sundar Rajan and Melsheimer, it was also their Keystone Project for Kilachand Honors College. Their prototypes used a cheap chemical desiccant, calcium chloride (CaCl₂), to draw moisture from the air. The unit itself acted as a solar oven, using the natural heat of the sun to boil the water back out of the desiccant. That vapor was then to be collected through condensation. No fuss, muss, or power source required. More than a few companies are seeking similar solutions, but many existing attempts to solve the problem use high technology, costly or fragile equipment, or have other logistical issues that would hinder their use in remote or poorly resourced areas. The BU team’s solution was intended to be simpler and easy to implement and even to be easy to swap out some materials to use locally available resources. The question was, would it work? Watch the video and find out. Want to learn more? Visit BU Today: bu.edu/articles/2022/bu-engineering-students-build-device-that-harvests-water-from-air #BostonUniversity #StudentProject #Engineering