Can you theoretically have an endless supply of water if you can find a way to collect the water that condensates on the outside of a water bottle?
In: Chemistry
To a degree, yes. Similar to how ac units (the cold side) usually requires a drain pipe due to the humidity in the surrounding air cooling and losing enough energy to fall back into a liquid state and run down the side.
That being said the water you could collect this way is effectively infinite due to the water cycle of earth and massive amount of ocean. The main cost is POWER.
Cutting out the ice maker or refrigerator as the middle man and just using the condenser/heat pump inside of it to cool a surface for collecting water will almost certainly be more expensive per gallon than buying a case of water and cooling it in the refrigerator. Although yes it is completely possible to pull “effectively” infinite amounts of water from the atmosphere, on a large enough scale it may present some climate challenges or weather changes
In principle yes, but as condensation forms, the bottle would warm up and stop producing condensation. You could electrically cool a surface to collect water – that’s what a dehumidifier does – but it’s energy intensive and not really a practical source of water.
To condensate the water you need to keep the water cool. So you need to cool the water with a heat pump like in a refrigerator or naturally cool it by for example pump it in pipes through the ground. Using the ground has a problem because you will heat it up so it only works a limited time.
So you need some energy source to keep it working.
Get in water from the air is what a dehumidifier does. It works fine but the energy requirement is extremely high.
In areas with very moist air the energy requirement is lowest but most are Brexit in places where there water that you access.
Location with dry air requires moist energy and that is the place you need water.
If you have access to saltwater then desalination requires a lot less energy and is done on the large scale today
The result is for the cost of the energy you need getting a truck to transport water will be cheaper.
Thunderf00t has videos where he explains the problem of this. There have been projecting like Waterseer that end up producing water with dehumidifier ins a very cost and energy inefficient way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVsqIjAeeXw
So the idea works but is very energy and cost-inefficient. Where is could be reasonably efficient there will not be a water supply problem.
That water comes from the air. It deposits from the warmer air onto the cold bottle. It’s dew. Yes you could get an “endless” supply of water at a small scale. As long as you aren’t sucking entire clouds in, because then people might get angry. Rain is kind of good for the environment it turns out
Not strictly speaking endless no. There’s not an infinite amount of water in theair.
However there is a process called fog condensation which actually uses the process that you described on a larger scale.
* There is gas-phase water in the air. Air can only hold so much water, any more than that and it can’t stay a gas and condenses into liquid droplets. That’s what condensation is. That’s also what dew is, and frost.
* The amount of water that air can hold depends on temperature. The warmer the air, the more water it can hold. Condensation happens when warm humid air gets cooled down by the cold walls of the water bottle. As it cools, its water-holding capacity gets less. Once the cooling air can’t hold the water it previously could, it has to get rid of it – the water condenses into liquid droplets that deposit on the nearest surfaces (aka the water bottle).
* Once the water bottle isn’t colder than the air around it, the condensation stops. So if the bottle warms up, no condensation. An empty bottle, or good insulation, no condensation. If the outdoor air temp gets as cold as the bottle contents, no condensation. That’s why a very cold drink on a very hot day gives you the most condensation.
So, as a water source, the limits are:
* How much you’re able to keep the condensing surface cold (which takes energy, or adding ice – which also takes energy)
* How much humidity is in the air to begin with. You can only condense out as much water as the air is holding to begin with.
Your idea is so good that they’re actually using it, by the way! [Fog collection as a water source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_collection) is useful in specific climates (eg high deserts in Chile) that get very little rain but often have fog (which is very humid air that’s 100% full of water vapour). There are also plants and even animals such as the [Namib Desert Beetle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenocara_gracilipes) with body parts specifically designed to promote condensation and collect it as their primary water source:
>To drink water, the S. gracilipes stands on a small ridge of sand. Facing into the breeze, the beetle catches fog droplets on its hardened wings. Its head faces upwind, and its stiff, bumpy outer wings are spread against the damp breeze. Minute water droplets from the fog gather and stick to hydrophilic (water-loving) bumps on its wings. Accumulation continues until the combined droplet weight overcomes the water’s electrostatic attraction to the bumps; at that point it will roll down the beetle’s back to its mouthparts.
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