Cape Town – Drinking water is the most constrained resource around the world and humanity’s greatest challenge, according to Zero Mass Water founder and chief executive Cody Friesen, a materials scientist and an associate professor at Arizona State University in the US, who launched his solar water concept in Cape Town on Tuesday.
The panel system uses an ultra-absorbent material that collects water from the surrounding air, even in arid conditions.
The system produces an average of three to five litres of water a panel a day.
He became a professor of materials science in 2004.
“What I arrived at was that direct renewable resources was the thing that was going to be next, because renewable to electricity solves part of the problem, but eventually we must solve energy, water and food, and the most constrained resource we face around the world is drinking water.
Friesen said Cape Town recently faced the possibility of a Day Zero, which was pushed back to next year.
He said about a half-a-trillion litres of bottled water were sold globally a year.
“Yet at the same time, we’ve got supercomputers in our pockets that have all of humanity’s information – all of this knowledge; other channels that allow us to leapfrog well-point infrastructure.
So the question became, could we be creating leapfrogging water,” he said.
Friesen said Zero Mass Water’s Source hydropanes are a world-first technology, which use sunlight and air to make safe, pure drinking water.