This it’s not some clever and elaborate magic trick — it’s just plain, wonderful science!
Lima, Peru has the misfortune of being located at the northern edge of the driest desert in the world, the Atacama. They receive only about 0.51 cm of rain a year and must rely on drainage from the Andes mountains for their water supple. When that isn’t possible, they are forced to either pull watcher from polluted wells or pay an extravagant amount for bottled water from one of the unregulated, private water trucks.
Knowing of the dire situation of citizens, Lima’s University of Engineering and Technology teamed up with an advertising agency to solve this problem and simultaneously encourage youth to apply to their school. The result was a billboard that produces icy cool and clean water, for free, from thin air!
Engineering students came up with an ingenious idea which uses reverse osmosis to make humidity into drinking water. The billboard consists of five devices: air, an air filter, a condenser, a carbon filter and a cold tank. It can create up to 100 litres of water a day has already provided 9,450 litres of waters to the residents of Lima in just three months.
While it is the only billboard of its sort so far, hopefully the genius of this structure will inspire kids to look into a career in engineering and result in thousands more similar billboards all over the world!