Phillips Adam's in his weekend magazine column in the Weekend Australian wrote about a remarkable invention by a Mr Max Whisson.

Apparently Whisson has invented a windmill that is self powered and is able to produce water from air.

I'm no scientist so I would welcome comments from posters, especially those who have a handle on the physics involved in extracting water from the air.

Is this a wind-up, or is it really possible?

If it is it may well be one of the most important inventions ever.

Read PA's article here: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21123007-12272,00.html

Certainly it is quite probable that it does exactly what they claim. There are already commercially available units that run off electricity that collect water condensing on refrigerated coils and filter it for drinking water. A small unit can provide about 12 liters a day or more, depending on the humidity. I betting that instead of electricity being used to power the compressor a turbine-like arrangement would be used to power it directly. It will need to be filtered a bit as dust and some other atmospheric pollutants also tend to come with the water, but it is a wonderful way of collecting drinking water, the conventional technology just needs power, I guess Max's doesn't. So far the units I've seen are only good for drinking water quantities as not enough is collected (especially with the amount of power needed) for washing and industrial uses.

Thanks for that Bugsy, do you know of www sites on line where i can read and see the units you speak of?

And do you know what quantity of water these units are able to refine?

Interesting, but I wonder if they fall into the same problem that wind
generators succom to ?
At design wind speeds, say 15 to 20 knots fine, but output drops to the
cube root of the wind speed. Now in suburban areas to get high enough
turbulance free air you would need a 30 metre tower to install it on.
Anything less is probably a waste of time and money.
I havn't a clue how it works but unless they overcome the above problem
it will be back to the drawing board.

Her you go, take a look at this:

http://www.airwater.com.au/home.htm

If you click on the products link for air-water, they have all the specs and capacities.

Thanks for that link Bugsy, I'm on to it.

Bazz, I too considered that wind speed regeneration ratio and can't see how it would work.

From the Adams article its described as long upright rotating columns that can calibrate and turn in any wind direction available.

I'm try and track down some info about this. Actually I'll go right to the inventor himself and see how much he is willing to reveal.

The link that bugsy gave is an American manufacturer.
It does not say how they work it but it is probably a refrigeration
system or a peltier effect system similar to thos car coolers you can buy.
They have units with solar cells, but it is fine for field use but
I can't see it being a goer elsewhere.
Back to the drawing board.

Water from air is no new thing. In Crimia there exist large piles of dark rocks on a concrete bases. The idea being that the rocks radiate their heat and water condenses on them and is collected on the base.I imagine that one would need a humid climate

The windmill is interesting in that it seems to harness vertical air movements (such as hot air rising during the day) as well as the conventional horizontal ones (wind). I guess it uses a heat pump (refrigerator) to extract water vapour from the air. Were the technology applied on a broad scale, it is likely to adversely affect cloud formation and rainfall – i.e. less. Already large wind farms have been observed to alter local climate through their effects on wind – so renewable energy is a little trickier than one may think ( see http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6608 ). I think the mill would work, but it is not that useful.

I had wondered if perhaps the design was centred around a stirling engine rather than a gas refridgerant system. Fascinating concept - it will be interesting to watch.

Well it as it generates kinetic energy from wind, it might as well use that to compress air, and work as fridge. But on the other hand, when you compress air, you get water out from it. No conversion to electricity is needed. I think that would rice it's efficiency dramatically.

And about the design, i would draw it as something like this:
http://www.androsgreece.gr/IMAGES/TECHNOLOGY/ftera.jpg
but with the 'wings' in horizontal level, generating lift -> reducing friction. Well this is just guess, but that would work in any direction at least.

Photos of vertical wind mills I have seen look a bit like an elongated
egg beater held vertical. Vertical windmills are quite commom I gather
but they need higher wind speeds to get them started.
The idea of not generating electricity and driving it directly must
improve the efficiency provided it can stand varying speed.
Systems like this might be practical for drinking water and cooking,
but could it produce anything like what we currently use ?

It might get far too big.

Perhaps it's a windmill hooked up to a Stirling engine configured as a heat pump? Tell us more...

For those interesred in this Water from air tech, visit www.waterunlimited.com.au