WaterPod: Drinkable Ocean Water Made Possible by Malaysian Students

by Idlan

4 January 2022

in Tech

Reading Time: 3 mins read

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Have you ever thought about what you would do to survive being stranded in the ocean without supplies? Worst of all, there’s no drinkable ocean water suitable for consumption! That’s what the WaterPod hopes to help us with!

With their National James Dyson Award-winning design, “The WaterPod” results from a group of Malaysian students’ brainstorming and hard work. As a result, the WaterPod can provide drinkable ocean water to communities living near the ocean.

Introducing the winners and brains behind The WaterPod, Bennie Beh Hue May, Loo Xin Yang, and Yap Chun Yoon, students at the School 4of Media, Arts and Design (somad) at Asia Pacific University Technology & Innovation (APU).

The WaterPod Story and how it works?

The inspiration behind the WaterPod comes from their intention to help sea nomads access drinkable water. Furthermore, the design uses a sustainable floating desalination pod, which resolves water problems and improves sea nomads’ living conditions.

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An example of a sea nomads community is Sabah’s Bajau community. Which lives at the coasts and islands in Southeast Asia. So far, these communities collect rainwater or barter tap water wherever they can. Just imagine all the effort just for access to clean tap water. Without clean water, the communities have issues growing fruits and vegetables and having limited access to drinkable water. It indeed feels that we underappreciate our easy access to clean water.

In addition to having limited access to clean water, the Bajau community also faces high plastic wastes floating on the ocean. Thus, WaterPod’s team proposes to recycle plastic wastes and produce the body of the WaterPod. Ultimately leading towards a potential low-cost and environmentally friendly solution for sea nomads to improve their lives.

waterpod how it works — Source: https://www.jamesdysonaward.org/en-SG/2021/project/waterpod/

An innovative solar desalination technology allows seawater to be easily absorbed by a wick cable and then sent to the black cloth, where it is purified (as seen in the illustration above).

As soon as the WaterPod exposes to sunlight, the evaporation process begins. After which the pod itself collects the vapours, and pumps out them out as drinking water. It’s a simple but yet elegant design!

Future Plans?

By winning the National James Dyson Award, WaterPod team hopes to go further! They want to gain the attention of possible industry collaborators, investors, and researchers who can help them further develop their WaterPod.

We wish the WaterPod’s team all the best and hope to see WaterPod’s dream turn into reality.

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