当强风从海上吹来，沙漠甲虫便弓起身子，让晨雾附着在它的背上、凝结成水珠，然後应声滚落至嘴中。
    两千年前，罗马作家老蒲林尼(Pliny the Elder)曾经记载着加那利群岛人们的聪明智慧；他们懂得收集困在树丛之间的水珠，为自己取得日常生活的饮用水。而那些摆落在树丛周围收集水气的石头，至今仍在。这是先民古老的智慧，只是千年之後，我们才从大自然的沙漠中观察到类似的集水技俩，然後研发成我们今日可以使用的集水器。
    沙漠中有许许多多令人惊异的生命现象，尤其在储水功能上的表现，更是令人赞叹，驼峰、仙人掌的多汁茎干，就是个精采的例子。但现在科学家发现，连沙漠中的甲虫也在集水功能上，展现出毫不逊色的本能──秘密武器就藏在鞘翅之上。
    非洲西南方有个那米比亚沙漠，那是地球上最炎热、最乾燥的地方之一。它不下雨，但是一年之中有六个月的时间，从大西洋偶发的强风阵阵，会为该地带来雾气，而这些雾气竟成了沙漠甲虫败部复活的资源。
    Stenocara是一种生活在沙漠中的甲虫。这些甲虫的背部并不平滑，反而覆盖了一粒粒的凸起物，别小看这些毫不起眼的小凸块，牛津大学的动物学者Andrew Parker和英国国防科研商务部门QinetiQ公司的Chris Lawrence认为，这种甲虫之所以能从这种瞬间而逝的环境变化中获取生存资源，要归功於其背翅上这一凹一凸的集水和排水构造。
    Parker和Lawrence长期观察甲虫鞘翅表面的构造。在显微镜下，覆盖着鞘翅的一列列凸起物显得更清晰──那些凸起物看起来十分光滑，而在边缘和低漥处则像打了一层蜡一样。这就和荷叶的功能十分类似，它们不渗水，让水珠在上面一下子就会滚落。
    于是，当这些临时起意的阵风袭来，沙漠小甲虫早已鼓着翅膀在等待。阵风中的雾气吹拂过它们的翅膀，小小的水珠便附着在这些引水前来的小凸块上面，等到这些小小水珠愈长愈大，使得「水珠的重量对接触面积的比例愈来愈大，毛细管张力愈来愈抓不住这些水珠」时，水珠就会倏地落下，顺势在甲虫鞘翅表面的凹槽中流动，最後咕噜一声，应声落入甲虫那张早张着的大嘴之中。
    这听起来算不得是什麽了不起的技巧，而且要造一个类似的工具也很容易。只要用丝网印刷法以及铸模铸造──甚至只要用印表机在醋酸纤维纸上喷上吸水性墨水──就能制造出类似的工具。
    因此，Parker和QinetiQ公司正在积极进行这种「雾气集水器」的设计和制造。与其他种雾气集水器相较，他们的努力已使其收集效率高出数倍。这个集水器还可以为住家收集饮用水，或许不出一年，它就可以上市发售。
    多伦多的自然生态学者Robert Schemenauer推出一个可以使这种集水器的销量逐年成长、遍及世界的计划。这个计划的其中一步已经看到成效：1987年在Chungungo的智利村落装设的集水器，现在每日供应15000公升的水给700个人饮用。
    塑胶筛孔是Schemenauer的雾气集水器材质的首选，因为它坚固耐用、效率高，而且便宜。不过若能做更进一步的改良，当然更好：「如果能够从甲虫身上获取制造材料会很有帮助的，」Schemenauer说，「甲虫引发我们寻找集水器材质的灵感，那对於收集露水将十分有用。」因为目前，让水珠流出的集水器表面材质，在制造上仍是个问题。
    看来再恶劣的环境，总还是为生命保留一丝希望；而人类为了改善自身的生活环境，还是得向大自然学习。

Max Whisson's Gust Water Trap Apparatus

The Whisson vertical windmill cools the air passing through the whirling blades. As it does so, a proprietary process collects condensate, yielding fresh water from the air. The water trap apparatus can generate useful resource for consumption.

Stage of Development 

"We at Water Un Limited are still in the Development and Testing stage of prototype development. We do not, therefore, currently have a working model that the public can purchase." (Elizabeth Ellis, Administrator; April 23, 2008)

Max Water

"The MAX WATER has the potential to produce water from air using a turbine containing refrigerants. If successful, this technology will be capable of supplying commercial quantities of water for a wide variety of uses powered by wind energy alone. If successful the technology developed by Dr Max Whisson may represent the most important breakthrough in water production in recent years. The commercialisation of Max Water may be by license, direct sales, distributor networks or a combination of these. Under any marketing strategy a percentage of units produced will be donated via appropriate charitable organizations to supply water to areas of extreme poverty in developing economies."

 

Potentially the world's first continuous source of water - The MAX WATER has the potential to produce water from air using a turbine containing refrigerants. If successful, this technology will be capable of supplying commercial quantities of water for a wide variety of uses powered by wind energy alone. If successful the technology developed by Dr Max Whisson may represent the most important breakthrough in water production in recent years. The commercialisation of Max Water may be by license, direct sales, distributor networks or a combination of these. Under any marketing strategy a percentage of units produced will be donated via appropriate charitable organizations to supply water to areas of extreme poverty in developing economies. (YouTube; March 28, 2007)

WO2007009184

WO2007009184
GUST WATER TRAP APPARATUS
WHISSON, Maxwell Edmund
1-25-2007
Applicant: WATER UN LTD (AU); WHISSON MAXWELL EDMUND
EC: IPC: E03B3/28; B01D5/00; E03B3/00 (+1)

Abstract 

A Gust Water Trap Apparatus comprises means (9, 42, 52) for receiving air from ambient wind and means for feeding the received air into a compression chamber (46, 56). Restriction means (21, 41) leads from the compression chamber into a condensation chamber (18). The apparatus leads to an increase in the pressure of air from wind gusts so that the air loses energy and is cooled further in the condensation chamber so as to deposit liquid water in the condensation chamber.

WO2006017888

WO2006017888

APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR COOLING OF AIR WHISSON, Maxwell Edmund 2-23-2006 EC: B01D5/00B16; B01D5/00K12; (+4) IPC: (IPC1-7): F25B27/00; B01D5/00; F03D9/00 (+1)

Abstract 

A wind turbine apparatus (40) for cooling of air having a wind turbine (10) axially connected to a refrigeration compressor (13) arranged to compress refrigerant, means (18) for conducting compressed refrigerant centrifugally outwards, means for causing the compressed refrigerant to lose pressure (23) so as to cool fades (16) of the wind turbine (10), and means for returning spent refrigerant centripetally to the compressor (13).

Profile

Company: Water UN Limited

Water UN Limited was incorporated to acquire the technology and intellectual property associated with water from ambient air technology, also known as ‘the Max Water', from world renowned Perth based inventor Dr Max Whisson

• Saving Water Special: Max Whisson - Perth’s Dr Max Whisson set out four years ago to do something about Australia’s lack of water. The result is Max Water, a simple way of harvesting pure water from an unlimited source – the atmosphere. Designed to have minimal impact on the environment, be space efficient and use zero fossil fuels, Max Water uses condensation and the kinetic energy of a wind turbine to literally make water out of thin air. (ABC News, The New Inventors series; May 30, 2007)

• Cry Me a River - 'Australian Story' documentary. (ABC News; May 22, 2007)
  • Windmills of Your Mind (video links and photo gallery) - Whisson believes he can solve the current water crisis with his Water Windmill invention, a unique technology to extract moisture from the atmosphere - partly inspired by a little beetle called Stenocara.

• The Whisson Windmill - Water From Air, Why Not? - The Whisson windmill that promises water out of air, is real. It’s subject to international patents. (Alternative Energy Sources; March 15, 2007

• Water Unlimited: Max Whisson - Podcast of ABC Radio National interview. (ABC News; Feb. 05, 2007)

• The Whisson Windmill - Water From Air, Why Not? - Dr Whisson himself describes his Whisson Windmill as follows: "The essential principle is that more wind is used for power than for water supply. In other words, the area of power turbines is greater than the area of turbines leading to water harvest. This is all made much easier by the invention of a new kind of wind turbine or 'windmill'. The amount of water available in the air is for all forseeable practical purposes unlimited. The bottom 1 kilometre (in the atmosphere) alone contains about 1.000,000,000,000,000 litres of water and that is turned over every few hours. The "Whisson Windmill" or Max Water From Air device will make it possible to get adequate water anywhere at any time, drought or no drought."

• Alternate Energy Sources For A Flourishing Future (February, 2007)

• Water from wind - "[Max] Whisson's design has many blades, each as aerodynamic as an aircraft wing, and each employing 'lift' to get the device spinning... They don't face into the wind like a conventional windmill; they're arranged vertically, within an elegant column, and take the wind from any direction... The secret of Max's design is how his windmills, whirring away in the merest hint of a wind, cool the air as it passes by... With three or four of Max's magical machines on hills at our farm we could fill the tanks and troughs, and weather the drought. One small Whisson windmill on the roof of a suburban house could keep your taps flowing. Biggies on office buildings, whoppers on skyscrapers, could give independence from the city's water supply. And plonk a few hundred in marginal outback land — specifically to water tree-lots — and you could start to improve local rainfall." (The Australian; January 27, 2007)
  • Water From Wind - writeup in The Australian by columnist Phillip Adams about a new windmill design that extracts water from air. The article gives few details of how it works, because patent protection is not yet in place, but what is revealed sounds promising. (Slashdot; January 30, 2007)
  • Water from wind- an inventor in Australia claims to defeat global warming - "Though it sounds like something Luke Skywalker would be using on Uncle Owen's farm, the Whisson vertical windmill actually does cool the air passing through the whriling blades. As it does so, a secret process collects condesate, fresh water from the air. One of these could remove your suburban house from the public water supply. A big one could remove a high-rise apartment. Three or four, providing irrigation water for trees, could actually pull off Israel's miracle cure for desertification- as the trees slowly take over for, and create the same effect as, the windmills." (Technocrat.net; MA; Jan. 30, 2007)