CloudFisher Traps Water from Fog

CloudFisher collects the water from fog due to the 3D net of fibers which “trap” the condensated water droplets and the result product is clean, drinking water.

CloudFisher is a stretched mesh inside the steel frame, for collecting water from the clouds, as the name itself suggests.

Multiple such mesh are set up in Morocco, a country with very high humidity, which is convention for this technology. Morocco will have the largest fog-catching facility – 31 of the mesh pieces. It is predicted when all of them are installed, they will be able to produce around 37,400 liters of water on a foggy day, which will provide 18 l for every person.

CloudFisher was designed by Peter Trautwein, the CEO of Aqualonis.

The structure is simple: strung between poles is the mesh with holes in which the fog condensates creating tiny drops which remain in the holes until there is enough of them to create a larger drop which will slide down the fiber to the water-catching device at the bottom. This is clean, drinking water, which is then directed to the collection tank.

CloudFisher is different from other fog-catching devices since it has a 3D fiber net making more surface for the water to be “trapped” and collected.

Additionally, the structure can withstand wind the speed of up to 75 miles per hour.

Each time Trautwein goes to Morocco, he tests the pressure the mesh withstands and cuts a piece of the mesh to look for cracks and degeneration.

The fibers deteriorate extremely slowly – after several years they have deteriorated only by 3%, which still makes them practically new.

CloudFisher is protected from the top by a wire from bird droppings.

In Morocco, people were at first skeptical and refused to drink the clean water CloudFisher produces because they thought it doesn’t contain minerals, thought it was proven it contains traces of minerals.

The initial cost of the product is expensive, but the since they are extremely durable and don’t need maintenance they pay off. A single mesh costs 10,900 Euros but with more of them installed, drops to 9000 Euros.

Written by Marina Andjelkovic

Video source: WasserStiftung, Ebenhausen bei München

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Taxonomy

• Technology
• Water Supply
• Drinking Water Managment
• Drinking Water
• Water