Hexater atmogenerator

water scarcitywas the one our team choose to pursue because of its importance and severity it has in our modern world. In some parts of the world, there is a constant struggle to access fresh water. As the world's population increases, so does the need for expanding populations to have access to secure water sources. With more people to feed, the need for freshwater grows for individuals, industries, and society at large. However, factors such as climate change, poor water management, and water pollution limit access to water around the globe. The effects of escalating water shortages will have devastating consequences as public health, food supply, and global peace are all threatened.

While many people may not realize it, humidity in the air can be a valuable resource that has the potential to vastly improve the lives of people all over the world. Our team is eager to explore this lesser-known aspect of water sustainability by designing and testing a device that can filter air pollutants and convert the moisture in the air into clean, drinkable water. Our innovative system utilizes an air filter, cooler, and renewable energy systems to collect, condense, and purify water vapor. The renewable energy sources used can be exemplified in hydroelectricity from nearby rivers as well as solar panels installed on rooftops, to power the device. By assessing the rate of water production, we hope to identify areas where this technology would be most practical and effective. 
 

Our ultimate aim is to raise awareness about the value of humidity in the air as a potential source of clean water and to develop a sustainable solution to address the water scarcity issues plaguing many communities around the world. By creating a simple, effective, and sustainable solution to the problem of water pollution, we were able to improve the lives of people living in remote areas and provide access to clean drinking water for everyone. Our prototype serves as a testament to the power of collaboration and innovation in creating an impactful solution to some of the world's most pressing challenges

Our team consists of 7 members, and each one of them had their share when working on this project, and each one did it perfectly. 

Xanthi: our mentor and our main source of support, encouragement, and mentorship.

Muhammad: Our team leader who was able to even and coordinate the group with careful and long-sighted planning

Malak and Ahlam: Did great work on the designing part of the project and had an effective role in planning 

Renada and Haneen: Specialized in the programming part (building the website)

 Srilekha: supervised the scientific and business approach of the project

Currently, our team is working non-stop on building and testing our device so we can have the best product out of it. 

We also objectively measure the amount of energy being used to collect, condense, and purify the water. If the energy that is being used to purify the water is more than necessary, we refine our design and make it more sustainable. In order to test the true accuracy of the device, we test it in areas of different humidity. For example, the performance of this device in arid conditions will differ from that in dewy or humid conditions. Such differences should be recorded because they are important sources of data.

Our solution is still under testing, however, soon enough, we'll be distributing our device among the towns a nd regions in need.

As a team, our concern is the scarcity of water and how it's affecting communities all over the world, we knew we needed to find a sustainable solution.

Water sustainability, being one of the UN’s SDGs, has always provoked a sense of responsibility and duty to use the privileges we have: Education- problem-solving skills- etc. Being part of this challenge has offered us the opportunity to impose an impact and be productive pupils, eager to learn more and give as much as we can. 

In addition to this, the challenge empowers me, as it’ll build the confidence and discipline to overcome the obstacles we face. And will help impose an impact not only on the surrounding community but the whole world. It'll give us the chance to participate in working toward achieving one of the most important SDGs

Since water has always been the primary component of life, our device will help areas of low water sources by processing the humid air into drinkable clean water. Our equipment uses air filtration and seamlessly makes water out of thin air using the local humidity. Also, lowering its carbon footprint and enabling self-sustainability, it is powered by the environment, such as by the use of a solar-powered roof. Through this device, we hope to develop a novel way to guarantee everyone has access to clean drinking water.

Our main goal is to reach the regions that have been highly affected by the current climate change. 

We would like to improve the efficiency of the water filtration system by seeing how we maximize the amount of filtered water while minimizing the energy we use to filter it

We are also looking into modifying the materials for our devices to make them more sustainable and inexpensive. A device that is too specialized and expensive to produce cannot be used in a widespread manner. 

In the coming 5 years, we will work on having professional collaborations with organizations that will help us distribute our device in countries and towns that are the most affected by global warming and climate change.

Not only they'll have access to drinking water, but also this water can be used in farming and agriculture that'll help them provide food and maintain an income.

In addition to the webinars and presentations, they'll help us raise awareness about the problem we're solving and inspire young innovators to join us or start their own innovative solutions.

The following section of this report will explain our findings and the progress that have achieved through research and for the purpose of finding a good and useful solution to it. so we have chosen the best method and the highest quality of research to achieve the best and most accurate result we can reach.

From the research we did in order to design a functional and efficient apparatus that can produce water from humidity in the air we found 3 main issues:

1.         The cooling chamber: in order to produce water from thin air we would need to condense the water vapors in the environment. The problem that we found through the results of the research showed a very low rate of condensation which is problematic as this means it couldn’t produce enough water for everyday use.

2.         Energy/power system: to be able to run a cooling system you will need to have a large enough power source to keep it going constantly, and since the apparatus would be used in remote areas, we couldn’t use conventional electric power, we had to use renewable energy.

3.         filtration system: we found out that air contains very small particles like bacteria, viruses, and heavy metals, all of which are very harmful to human health. And we found that both filtering the air and water produced can become very expensive

   The next section describes people’s opinions on the subject and project, and how we have created a survey to know the point of view of people and understand how they see and consider water's importance and sustainability in their own sense. most of the people’s answers were showing the same point which is that they deserve the importance of water in their lives, and they were aware of the challenges that are in the water field, their answers showed that they are so excited about any new idea can solve the water field problems or even improve it. (97.2%) of people believe that water enters all areas and fields of life. (11.8%) of people believe that the lack of water affects people’s lives (40%-60%), (41.4%) of people believe that the lack of water affects people’s lives (70%-90%) and (47%) of them believe that the lack of water affects people’s lives (100%). 

We plan on finding other ways and solutions for humanity to have a water source that doesn’t harm the environment or the aquatic animals. We are also looking into modifying the materials for our device to make it more inexpensive. Because a device that is too specialized and expensive to produce cannot be used in a widespread manner. Thus, we want to change how we perceive water and make it more affordable and widespread, and less harmful to the environment and surrounding.

Our solution is based on a core technology that is supported by three pillars that are filtration, condensation, and power generation to produce clean drinking water from the water vapor in the atmosphere. Our equipment, which has been designed to be used in locations with contaminated and polluted rivers while simultaneously having a humid atmosphere, is based on this technology.

     The initial step of our process involves employing air filtration mechanisms to effectively eliminate any impurities or particles that may be present in the air. Subsequently, our innovative technique harnesses the surrounding humidity to seamlessly extract water from the purified air. Once this water extraction has taken place, we utilize a condensation process to transform the water vapor into a liquid state, rendering it suitable for a myriad of applications, including drinking and various other purposes.
     To address the challenge of increasing the rate of liquid water, we devised several strategies. Initially, we designed an extremely cold chamber to gather water, but further exploration led to improved techniques. We enhanced the process by implementing constant air ventilation, maintaining high humidity levels around the cooling chamber, increasing the chamber's surface area, and keeping it at a temperature of around 5 degrees Celsius or below. These solutions enabled us to overcome the challenges and develop a sustainable system suitable for remote areas. By incorporating continuous airflow, elevated humidity, expanded surface area, and optimal temperature control, we achieved a significant improvement in water collection. This development ensures reliable access to liquid water, providing a viable solution for regions facing water scarcity.
    Lastly, our third core system is our power generation. we have integrated sustainable energy sources into our solution. We utilize solar panels to harness the abundant sunlight available in remote areas. The solar-powered roof of our equipment converts sunlight into electrical energy, which powers the air filtration and condensation process. In addition, we also make use of a hydroelectric power system that harnesses the energy from the neighboring river's current. This ensures that our solution operates self-sufficiently, reducing its carbon footprint and promoting environmental sustainability. 
     In conclusion, the core technology powering our solution combines air filtration, condensation, and renewable energy sources to convert water vapor into clean drinking water. By harnessing the local humidity and employing sustainable energy, we provide a practical and innovative approach to ensure clean water access for everyone, even in remote and polluted areas.

Our team consists of six talented people, working alongside an experienced mentor, we've recently had the opportunity to participate in an international competition focused on research and design. Along the way, we ran into various obstacles, including scheduling conflicts and language barriers, but persevered to create a project that excited us all. Through this experience, we learned the importance of effectively delegating, communicating, and trusting team members. As our team entailed diversity as we had two members from Egypt, two from Jordan, One from the US, and our mentor from Greece. We based our interaction on respect and inclusion, thus each one on the team had a significant role while keeping a weekly meeting to share all the updates.  

Our business model is centered around both products and services. We want to sell our product to people in order to gain revenue, but we also plan to use a portion of the profits to fund water filtration systems for communities that are not able to afford the product. In this way, we are able to ensure accessibility while remaining in business. In order to do this on a large scale, the filtration system needs to be affordable and scalable so it can be accessible to everyone. To achieve this goal, we included materials that were relatively inexpensive and available to scale. We are currently working on reducing the cost of the product so that it can be distributed widely. 

We plan to fund Hexater by appealing for grant programs. In order to widely distribute our product and technology, we will need to perform more research testing water filtration in a variety of scenarios, and securing a grant will be instrumental in providing us the facilities and funding to perform additional research to validate the product. To cover costs that may occur during this process, we will continue to sell our original product to bring in revenue. We believe that the primary avenue to reach financial sustainability is to achieve healthy growth year over year - therefore, increasing the reach of our product through low cost measures such as social media will be essential to keeping costs low and maximizing revenue. 

Our plan for financial sustainability has been successful as we were fortunate to join programs such as the New York Junior Academies of Science, where our ideas were refined with the guidance of a certified mentor. This has allowed us to create plans for the scalability of our product, which is necessary for achieving financial sustainability. In terms of the product itself, we have adopted the use of inexpensive materials to cut down our costs, and doing this has allowed us to allocate our resources to other aspects, such as funding a website and creating an official slide deck to spread the word about Hexater.