In competition with several thousand exhibits from two hundred countries around the world, SAWER (Solar Air Water Earth Resources, which scientists praised for the “sejvr”), won the award for best innovation presented at the EXPO from the Prime Minister of the UAE, Sheikh Muhammad bin Rashid Maktum.
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His story began at the last EXPO in Milan, where Czech exhibitors introduced a special grid that can separate water molecules from a variety of environments. “I was still thinking about whether it could be used to obtain water from the air and could not create a unit that would irrigate the land,” Jiří František Potužník, general commissioner of the Milan exhibition, which won a bronze medal, returns to the beginning of the story.
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When he came up with his idea for a team of scientists from the University Center for Energy Efficient Buildings (UCEEB) of the Czech Technical University, they looked at him like crazy. Of course, it is possible to produce water from the air. Such technology exists. But it is very energy intensive for the dry desert. They simply tried to explain to him that the way he imagined it would not work in practice. And with that, they broke up.
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An oasis in the desert
In a few days, the informal team boss Tomáš Matuška called him and said that a colleague had tried to calculate the use of a different system than the one he was proposing. And it looks like it could work. Word got out and an agreement was reached that the device would be created for the EXPO in Dubai. The scientists set to work.
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For the first time, they presented their idea at the International Engineering Fair in Brno (2017), where SAWER aroused attention and interest. He did not weaken throughout his development, quite the contrary.
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Jiří František Potužník
Photo: UCEB CTU
Moreover, it was not just about obtaining water, but also about using it. The device was supposed to produce water similar to rainwater. If you want to drink it, you would first have to enrich it in a special unit with certain minerals. For watering plants, it is again treated in a photobioreactor, which supplements it with nutrients in the form of microalgae.
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The water is then introduced through hoses directly to the roots of the plants at night. It will prevent evaporation. It can thus be used much more efficiently and intensively for plant growth. Thanks to it and other steps, it is possible to gradually turn dry desert sand into fertile soil full of nutrients. Just a little oasis. What’s more, he can do it in a place where there is no infrastructure: roads, electricity, telephone signal … In short, in the sand in the middle of the desert, in no man’s land.
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In order for the system to work optimally as a whole, Bořivoj Šourek, Vladimír Zmrhal and seven other scientists from UCEEB cooperated with Tomáš Matuška. They worked on it with colleagues from the Institute of Biology of the Academy of Sciences. They then took care of the garden at EXPO.
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Hell on a camel farm
The Czechs who work in the UAE helped them with contacts and thanks to that they were able to test SAWER not only in the Czech laboratory, but also on the camel farm of General Saif Mubarak Fadel Al Mazrouei. In order to catch up with the development and testing of the system, they had to go there in the middle of a hot summer. Temperatures in the desert reached 55 ° C. Some tools caught fire in the sun so that they could not be picked up.
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Scientists have had to deal with a lot of practical problems. With the installation of the system, with its optimal setting, charging mode, with a reasonable setting of the amount of water it is to produce, with the dust that clogged the solar panels. These and other moments, which capture the development of SAWER, were nicely presented by Karel Žalud’s time-consuming documentary: Let there be water. The scientists eventually managed everything and were able to return home.
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“I’ve never been so exhausted in my life as after returning from the desert,” says the slender, sporty 50-year-old associate professor Matuška. “Physical and psychical. I’ve been marred for a while. ”Scientists watched the system remotely in the desert on a camel farm over the Internet. When they caught his flies, they set about building an EXPO version.
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Tomáš Matuška
Photo: ČTK
The military also became interested in the system, asking scientists if they would develop a scaled-down version of it. The scientists named it MAGDA and designed a functional prototype. They also designed a small field bottle that can produce something similar with a small amount of water. However, it is not powered by a solar device, but by a hydrogen cell.
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Various investors and customers have continued to be interested in SAWER. They want to know its price, performance, profitability, where they can buy it, who will provide the service, etc. Only an economically strong manufacturer would be able to answer all questions satisfactorily. This is a more complicated problem for a group of scientists.
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At UCEEB, they can invent and test the device, but serial production, the business side of things, marketing and other necessities are issues that they do not normally deal with. Nevertheless, they did not want to give up the realization of the idea. They definitely wanted to make a prototype for the exhibition.
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Meanwhile, the world began to grip the covid. The date of the EXPA event has been postponed. In addition, Jiří Potužník had to replace the company that built the pavilion. For scientists, this meant a complication, for example, in that the version of the system for EXPO could not be built in the finished building, but in the middle of the construction site.
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SAWER test operation also took place without solar panels. The roof was just being finished. As the epidemic subsided, more and more people came to the exhibition. In the end, about 12 million visitors came to it, the Czech pavilion was seen by 1.3 million.
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I am also interested in foreign countries
The device produced 800 to 1300 liters of water a day, which is not a problem in Dubai because they have high humidity. In the middle of a hot desert, it would be about 100 liters a day. Four companies are seriously interested in the device: from the Czech Republic, the UAE, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. Private individuals are also calling for potential investors. Some contracts have already been signed, but a strong manufacturer is still missing.
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The SAWER has been able to produce 800 to 1,300 liters of water per day in tests in the UAE.
Photo: UCEB CTU
There is also no contract with a company that has experience and contacts in the places where SAWER would do best and which would bring the equipment to market.
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“Working on the ‘safe’ cost me the most effort of all the projects I’ve ever worked on,” says associate professor Matuška. “But it was worth it. Not every scientist is lucky to be able to go through the difficult path from idea to working invention. ”
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