Watercone.jpg
FA info icon.svg Angle down icon.svg Project data
Authors Stephan Augstin
Location Germany
Status Deployed
Links http://www.watercone.com
Instance of Solar still
OKH Manifest Download

The Watercone® is a solar powered water desalinator. It is claimed to be simple to use, lightweight, mobile and it is designed to produce 1.5 liters a day. It is a long lasting UV resistant Poly Carbonate product and can be used up to 5 years daily. The material is non-toxic, non-flammable and 100% recyclable. It can be used to purify salt water (Ocean) and /or brackish water (mixture of fresh water and salt water) via Solar distillation.

It was invented in Germany by a man by the name of Stephan Augstin. The invention is simple, yet very effective. it consists of a clear plastic cone (100% recyclable), and a black basin for holding the salt/brackish water (100% recycled Poly Carbonate).

How?[edit | edit source]

The cone floats inside the black basin forming an air tight seal which allows Solar radiation to heat the air and water inside shown in figure 1. The top of the cone has a cap similar to that of a pop bottle insuring that the water is not lost to the atmosphere. The evaporated water condenses on the side of the cone and trickles down to the trough at the cone's base; shown in figure 2. Finally the cone's cap can be unscrewed and the clean water drained into a container for drinking. To see more on the Watercone click here watercone.

Application[edit | edit source]

The Watercone would obviously work best in warm sunny conditions. When looking at a map that displays world Poverty levels it can been seen that the highest levels of poverty are in Africa. Click here for the map I used map. The areas shown in darkest red are extreme poverty areas, most of which are in tropical to sub tropical regions. Which means they receive a large amount of solar radiation. Therefore the Watercone would probably work well in these areas. The Watercone page above states:

There are at least 50 sunny, developing countries worldwide with a significant amount of sea- or coastline. Many from their populations, hundreds of millions, live in nearest proximity to water but cannot drink it or use it for agriculture, because it is saltwater. Large families, hamlets, villages could all experience dramatically improved quality of life starting from as little as a dozen Watercones set up close by the sea.

Costs and Production[edit | edit source]

The Watercone is made from polycarbonate, UV protected on the outside and FDA approved inside. TheWatercone is as simple as it comes, a plastic cone and basin. One needs little to no academic knowledge to understand how the cone works. The Watercone retails for about $69. With the price of a bottle of water being $.50 the Watercone would pay for itself in about 5 months. (updated by MAGE-Watermanagement North America, Inc, December 2010)

Resources[edit | edit source]

FA info icon.svg Angle down icon.svg Page data
Part of PH261
Keywords solar, water purification, solar distillation, water
SDG SDG06 Clean water and sanitation
Authors Matt Oknefski
License CC-BY-SA-3.0
Language English (en)
Related 0 subpages, 11 pages link here
Impact 6,064 page views
Created December 4, 2007 by Matt Oknefski
Modified October 23, 2023 by Maintenance script
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