Fontus: One day, cyclists won't have to worry about running out of water on their bikes. A device created by Kristof Retezár, an industrial design student at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, collects and condenses moisture from the air while the bike is in motion. It then fills a water bottle attached to the bike's frame.
The device is named “Fontus” after the Roman god of wells and springs. It uses the principle of thermoelectric cooling, in which an electrically driven heat pump transfers heat from one side of the container to the other.
The Fontus device is still in the prototype stage. The design was recently a finalist in the 2014 James Dyson Award, an international design competition.
How does it work? According to the product description on jamesdysonaward.org, solar panels generate the electricity needed to cool the upper chamber of the device, while the lower chamber is heated. As the bike moves forward, air enters the chamber, and is then cooled as it moves through the upper chamber. The moisture from the air then condenses into water and drips into a bottle.
According to the manufacturer Retezár, the product works best in hot and humid weather. In such climatic conditions, the Fontus can produce up to half a liter of water per hour. The system starts working well when the temperature is 20 degrees Celsius and the humidity reaches 50 percent. Under these conditions, the product produces about one drop of water per minute.
These climatic conditions are of course not easy to find in Vienna. So to test the system, Retezár had to simulate different atmospheric conditions in his bathroom.
The device doesn't yet have a cleaning system, so the current design isn't ideal for operating in a city with dirty air.
The basic components of the device aren't too expensive, according to the manufacturer. He estimates the cost of the prototype device to be between $25 and $40. However, this could change depending on future changes, as the device needs improvements.
