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Reverse osmosis is wasteful. The next goldmine is atmospheric water generation. The atmosphere is the largest untapped reservoir of clean water on Earth, and m

Reverse osmosis is wasteful. The next goldmine is atmospheric water generation. The atmosphere is the largest untapped reservoir of clean water on Earth, and mother nature has already desalinated the water through evaporation. Far less energy intensive and wasteful to condense the atmosphere than clean water by R.O.

deleted 6y ago
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reilly3000 6y ago
If you want clean water, you need to do more than evaporate it. Thanks to nasty stuff like Atrazine and PFAS, our rainwater brings chemicals that can alter reproductive organs, endocrine function, and are linked to cancer. I don't know if reverse osmosis removes these chemicals, but it would be worth removing at the source. An ounce of prevention can save a pound of downstream medical and societal costs. https://www.panna.org/resources/atrazine#2 https://www.panna.org/resources/atrazine#2 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/17/rainwater-pfas-us-potentially-toxic-levels-study https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/17/rainwate... https://www.ewg.org/research/ewg-proposes-pfas-standards-fully-protect-children-s-health https://www.ewg.org/research/ewg-proposes-pfas-standards-ful...
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  Our greywater too (from oral contraceptives)
adrianN 6y ago
Changing state from gas to liquid sounds pretty energy intensive to me. Do you have numbers for your claim that it's less energy intensive than RO?
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  I’d like to see numbers too, but the gas is a higher energy state and so its not outlandish to imagine there might be a way to bring it down efficiently.
colordrops 6y ago
> wasteful Are you referring to the resources used to create the equipment then discard it when it's done? Or to the wasted water? A permeate pump increases efficiency quite a bit.
ta988 6y ago
Atmospheric water collection will have contamination problems with volatiles and aerosols. Unusable in polluted cities. Unless you filter and clean, but you're back to the initial problem...
- joncrane 6y ago
  What would the water treatment for rainwater look like?

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reilly3000 6y ago

If you want clean water, you need to do more than evaporate it. Thanks to nasty stuff like Atrazine and PFAS, our rainwater brings chemicals that can alter reproductive organs, endocrine function, and are linked to cancer. I don't know if reverse osmosis removes these chemicals, but it would be worth removing at the source. An ounce of prevention can save a pound of downstream medical and societal costs. https://www.panna.org/resources/atrazine#2 https://www.panna.org/resources/atrazine#2 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/17/rainwater-pfas-us-potentially-toxic-levels-study https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/17/rainwate... https://www.ewg.org/research/ewg-proposes-pfas-standards-fully-protect-children-s-health https://www.ewg.org/research/ewg-proposes-pfas-standards-ful...

selimthegrim 6y ago
Our greywater too (from oral contraceptives)

adrianN 6y ago

Changing state from gas to liquid sounds pretty energy intensive to me. Do you have numbers for your claim that it's less energy intensive than RO?

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
I’d like to see numbers too, but the gas is a higher energy state and so its not outlandish to imagine there might be a way to bring it down efficiently.

colordrops 6y ago

> wasteful Are you referring to the resources used to create the equipment then discard it when it's done? Or to the wasted water? A permeate pump increases efficiency quite a bit.

ta988 6y ago

Atmospheric water collection will have contamination problems with volatiles and aerosols. Unusable in polluted cities. Unless you filter and clean, but you're back to the initial problem...

joncrane 6y ago
What would the water treatment for rainwater look like?