by Asha Lyons
7th grade at Lausanne Collegiate School (Germantown, TN)
Special Recognition
Thomas Fuller, a British historian and prolific author, once said, “We never know the worth of water until the well is dry.” Water is an essential resource that many do not have access to, making their daily life a struggle. According to the United Nations, by 2025, 1.8 billion people will experience water scarcity. These frightening statistics are spurring engineers to provide innovative solutions for sustainable access to clean water for developing countries.
Atop Mount Boutmezguida, in Morocco, fog gathers for half the year in this otherwise water depleted environment. This phenomenon motivated Moroccan engineer Dar Si Hmad to erect fog-collecting nets on Mount Boutmezguida with the help of German engineering associates, Wasserstiftung. In March 2015, he was able to set this project into action and provide access to drinking water from fog. From this international engineering alliance, the CloudFisher was invented. It was similar to previous fog collecting nets but with better execution and less needed maintenance. It could also withstand winds up to 120 kph while being cost-effective and requiring no energy. With funds from BMZ and MunichRe Foundation, the CloudFisher was installed atop of Mount Boutmezguida and in 16 villages, providing clean water for many Moroccans in need. This initiative spotlights the importance of global partnerships and varying perspectives in engineering as it has allowed for underprivileged people to access clean water.
Across the world, in Austin, Texas, mechanical engineer Guihua Yu led a research team to discover a breakthrough in clean water technology that can be used in times of water scarcity. This innovation from UT Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering allows moisture to be absorbed from the air into a unique mixture of hydrogels that return the moisture as clean, drinkable water. Around 50,000 cubic kilometers of water are contained in the atmosphere, making breakthroughs like this one crucial to unleashing the reserves of atmospheric water. But the wonderment of this invention does not stop here. This Texan moisture harvester is also solar-powered, requiring only humidity and sunlight for clean water. Prototype tests show that it can produce enough water for the daily needs of an average household. Pioneering concepts like this are essential as they are sustainable through the natural resources of sunlight and atmospheric moisture for all people, including future generations.
In the arid Middle East, desalination is an essential tool for providing clean water. Current ineffective desalination techniques involve fossil-fuels or water evaporation, but a new method has arisen-capacitive deionization. Reverse osmosis has paved the path for this process which can filter water and store energy, although there are still two major hurdles this technique must overcome. The first hurdle is that the electrochemical condensers rust during the regeneration stage when ions are released by an inverse current to generate energy. The second major hurdle is that the system can only manage small concentrations of salt; otherwise, the risk of corrosion is greatly magnified. Numerous environmental engineers, such as University of Pennsylvania’s research team, are diligently working to resolve these setbacks, which if solved could lead to a desalination technique requiring five to six times less energy than reverse osmosis.
The world is facing a crisis of providing clean water for all people, and engineers are battling this international emergency with a diversity of technology. These technological endeavors ensure sustainable clean water access by responsibly using natural resources without having a negative impact on the environment or society. Recognizing the needs of future generations and inclusive of disadvantaged people, these engineers have shaped their technological solutions while globally collaborating and overcoming environmental constraints. Although providing sustainable access to clean water might seem like an insurmountable task, these superior innovations, inspired by the diverse perspectives of global engineers, slowly bridge the gap between those who have sustainable access to water and those who do not. Solutions are always able to be created if only we are brave enough to find them.
Annotated Bibliography
A New Technology for More Efficient Desalination Plants. (n.d.). IMNOVATION. Retrieved January 31, 2022, from https://www.imnovation-hub.com/water/new-technology-more-efficient-desalination-plants/?_adin=01833301559
This source shows research on a new technique for desalination called capacitive deionization. It could dramatically improve the current desalination methods.
Si Hmad, D. (2016). A Ground-breaking Project: Harvesting Water from Fog – Dar Si Hmad. Darsihmad.org. http://darsihmad.org/fog/
This website shows Dar Si Hmad working in tangent with his German partners on fog collecting nets for those in the Ait Baamrane.
Solar-Powered Moisture Harvester Collects and Cleans Water from Air. (2021, February 25). TEXAS Impact. https://impact.utexas.edu/2021/02/25/solar-powered-moisture-harvester-collects-and-cleans-water-from-air/
This website showcases an innovation which can turn atmospheric moisture into clean drinking water. This discovery was made in Austin, Texas.
Stark, A. (n.d.). Summer students shine in desalination research. Www.llnl.gov. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://www.llnl.gov/news/summer-students-shine-desalination-research
This website shows research done on capacitive deionization during a summer program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
United Nations. (2018). Water and Sanitation - United Nations Sustainable Development. United Nations Sustainable Development; United Nations. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/water-and-sanitation/
This website shows how serious water scarcity is in most of the world. This caused me to choose sustainable access to clean water as my essay topic.
Bargach, J. (2019, November 17). Expo Live I Dar Si Hmad for Development, Education, & Culture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrtE8iOBxMU
This video provides insight into Dar Si Hmad’s plan for sustainable access to water through fog and the viewpoint of one of his partners.
Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation. (2018, September 14). Guihua Yu, U. of Texas at Austin: Designing New Functionality Into Nanostructured Gels (2018). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKA5NGvrSZU
This video showcases the researching process and efforts of Guihua Yu’s research team on hydrogels.