Pulling Water from Air

A Florida based company, Aqua Sciences, has a 20-foot machine can churn out 600 gallons of water a day (without using or producing toxic materials and byproducts), and is currently showing it off to the US government for the use by military in Iraq, for disaster relief and for other humanitarian purposes. The machine can operate on a minimum 15 percent humidity, and brings the cost of getting water to Iraq down from $30 per gallon (Which is the cost to transport water by C-17 cargo planes, then truck it to the troops) to 30 cents per gallon. They're reluctant to reveal their "secret sauce," which they liken to the KFC recipe, and hinted to think of how rice used in saltshakers that acts as a magnet to extract water and keeps salt from clumping, also referring to how nothing grows near the Dead Sea because the salt dehydrates everything. While taking a brief respite from their out-of-control metaphor usage, Aqua Science also mentioned a 40 foot version of their machine which can produce up to 1,200 gallons per day of water, depending on conditions, and can purify an additional 8,000 gallons per day of existing contaminated water using an "integrated reverse osmosis module." (Endgadget)
Wired News 10.6.06