When faced with the statistic that almost one billion people across the globe don’t have access to clean drinking water, 31% of schools don’t have clean water, 500 000 children under five die annually due to bad water quality and 600 million children will be living with limited water resources by 2040, the team at Kumulus decided to set out on a mission to provide drinking water in an economical and sustainable way. Their resulting invention, the Kumulus-1, is a machine that can convert humidity into drinkable water.
The Kumulus-1 is a highly futuristic-looking – almost like something out of Wall-E – Atmospheric Water Generator (AWG) that can produce between 20 to 30 litres of healthy drinking water per day. Designed by Zouhair Ben Jannet of Air Design Studio to be able to produce water in even the scarcest of areas of North Africa and the Middle East, the Kumulus machine essentially captures air, filters it, cools it and condenses it until it gathers in a water tank.
Kumulus-1 is also a smart machine, which means it offers the option of mobile control through an app that ensures the water is delivered in a sustainable and economical way. The entire machine fits into a 1m3 cube and can also be equipped with a solar power pack for an electrical connection, making it fully autonomous and independent.
Kumulus, which was founded by an ex-advisor of the Tunisian Minister of Energy, Iheb Triki, is guided by UN Sustainable Development Goals and a set of values that recognise water, freedom, and sustainability as integral parts of human rights – which is why the machine is designed to be fully autonomous, easy to transport and simple to set up and maintain. It is also designed to divert further plastic waste.
The first Kumulus-1 machine has been set up at the El Bayadha Elementary School in Jendouba, Tunisia in an effort to provide drinking water to school-goers. The team is currently providing the devices to other schools and villages that lack drinking water, and it is also on offer to factories, offices, and hotels in the hopes of reducing bottled water consumption.
More information about the Kumulus Water startup can be found on their website at www.kumuluswater.com, and the Kumulus-1 can be preordered here.
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Credits: Kumulus Water
