Each week, we spotlight a cool innovation recommended by some of the industry's top tech writers. This week's pick is a panel that creates drinking water from sunlight and air.
An Arizona State University professor last week won the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT prize for inventing "a hydropanel that extracts drinking water from sunlight and air," said Hayley Ringle at the Phoenix Business Journal. Cody Friesen, a professor of materials science and engineering, founded Zero Mass Water in 2015 as a way to "provide clean drinking water in communities, refugee camps, government offices, hotels, hospitals, schools, restaurants, and homes around the world."
His patented device uses powerful desiccants that can soak up drinkable water from air with humidity as low as 5 percent, with no external electricity required. It’s being employed in 33 countries after raising $25 million in venture capital funding last October. Now Friesen can add "the largest cash prize for U.S. inventions" to the bank.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
11 extra-special holiday gifts for everyone on your listThe Week Recommends Jingle their bells with the right present
-
‘Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right’ by Laura K. Field and ‘The Dream Factory: London’s First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare’ by Daniel SwiftFeature An insider’s POV on the GOP and the untold story of Shakespeare’s first theater
-
How to shop smarter with a grocery budgetThe Explainer No more pushing your cart down the aisles on autopilot
