UN Sustainable Development Goals Addressed
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Goal 6: Clean Water & Sanitation
2019 Global Design Challenge Finalist
This design concept was developed by participants in the Institute’s Global Design Challenge. The descriptions below are from the team’s competition entry materials.
Location: Long Beach, CA, United States
Team members: Duy Hua, Summer Kim, Savannah Cheung, Henry Nguyen
Innovation Details
H2U addresses the lack of clean water in the majority world with a design solution that collects water from fog. A fan connected to H2U will draw in and concentrate the fog, mimicking the motion created when ducks paddle their feet. The strings made from recycled bottles replicates spider webs and narrow leaves, which will help draw in fog and condense it into water droplets.
What problem does the solution solve? H2U is a response to the challenges faced by citizens of some third world countries due to frequent water shortage.
What is the technology and how does it work? With a net system, a fan, and a water tank, this design enables rapid water collection from fog. Fog in nature will condense into water droplets on the net system and drop down to the water tank. To maximize the efficiency of the water collection process, a fan is used to draw the fog into the net system. Testing has proved that the water that is collected from H2U over a night can be dispensed through a hose and is sufficient for a small village. The most exciting feature of H2U is the net that is made of plastic bottles; thus, H2U partly helps solve the current plastic waste crisis.
How it is biomimetic? The design of H2U is inspired by the spider’s web, the duck pedal, and the narrow-leaf syndrome.
What is the solution’s impact? If H2U becomes real, it will potentially tackle the water shortage in third world countries and the plastic waste crisis.
