Khan: Let's produce water from air

IN these hot and dry days of water scarcity, one man has come up with a solution – make water from the air we breathe.

He is veteran justice of the peace Ackbar Khan, who is throwing out a 21st-century challenge to the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), that he can supply almost every household with potable water. The solution, he told the Newsday, is water produced using a unique piece of equipment – the watermaker.

The watermaker is a machine Khan intends to import into TT to solve the country’s water crisis, he said, especially for the farmers in Aranguez. The machine is already in use across the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and uses refrigeration techniques which condense water from the atmosphere.

Khan provided Newsday with recent literature on the technology which displays the watermaker machine and explains the process. Almost the size of a washing machine, it is electrically powered and captures water vapour before it touches the earth. Through a process of refrigeration and distillation, the watermaker machine can produce between 25 and 5,000 litres per day.

The brochure said that people in Europe, the United States of America, South America, the Caribbean, are already using the watermaker which produces “a crystal-clear drinking water.”

Khan said he is saddened by the plight of people whose chicken and duck farms are being ruined, vegetable farmers being prosecuted by WASA and regional corporations pleading for water for residents of rural areas.

Khan said, “If this dry spell continues, I will import a few of these watermakers, and even if I have to donate them to regional corporations, I will be demonstrating what could be done if we are to face a worse water shortage in the future.”

The brochure said if the watermaker machine is used as specified, it can last for about ten years.

And as a blessing for TT, Khan said, the watermaker operates efficiently in high humidity.