An engineer at Ford has developed a system which captures and filters the water from a vehicle’s air conditioning system and makes it drinkable via a small faucet in the cabin.
Doug Martin was inspired to design the setup after reading about a billboard in Peru which created water out of humid air and provided it to locals. His system, dubbed On-The-Go H2O, brings similar technology into a vehicle and is one of just thousands of inventions submitted in the past year by Ford employees.
Whereas the condensation of a vehicle’s air conditioning system typically just drips out onto the road, Martin’s system captures it, runs it through a 0.1 micron filter to remove any contaminants and then pumps it through a faucet. Per hour, the system can produce over 64 ounces (1.89 liters) of water every hour.
Martin hopes that one day the system could make its way into a production vehicle and prove particularly useful in areas where safe drinking water is difficult to find.
“All that water going to waste should be recovered to serve a purpose,” he said. “The real vision is that this idea could eventually help people who don’t have easy access to water, in remote locations such as the Australian Outback, for example. I’m trying to make my twin daughters proud, and make the world a better place for them.”
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