Abstract :
The lack of clean water is one of the key issues facing the world today. The water in many countries is of poor quality, creating a big demand for bottled water, which has led to the deaths of millions in underdeveloped countries. Accordingly, there have been some efforts to develop an applicable technology known as Atmospheric Water Generators. It utilizes the natural occurrence of water vapour in the air to generate fresh water. This paper aims to solve the water crisis by designing an atmospheric water generator capable of supplying clean water that could be scaled up by an easy incremental expansion. An investigation has been conducted into different technologies of atmospheric water generators to address this issue. It could be concluded that desiccants are the most suitable technique to generate water with very low energy consumption and low cost. Additionally, an experiment has been conducted to select the most suitable concentration of the composite desiccant silica gel-CaCl2 concerning the absorption and regeneration capabilities, revealing that a 50% concentration is the best. This paper proposes a single-shelf triangular prism solar collector system that was manufactured and tested using silica gel-CaCl2 with a 50% concentration. The prototype resulted in producing 440 ml/m2/day. Also, the parameters affecting the process have been studied. Furthermore, a sample of water has been tested and proved that the extracted water meets the water quality international standards. Finally, the cost per litre was calculated and found to be 2.186 LE/litre (0.12 USD/litre).