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news
Fontus (credit Kristof Retezár)Self-filling water bottle could help cyclists - and people living in places without fresh water
A designer from Austria is hoping to win a James Dyson Award for his invention of a water bottle that refills itself.
While the invention could interest cyclists riding across continents or around the world, ensuring them a fresh supply of hydration, its primary use could come in regions where fresh water is hard to come by.
Kristof Retezár’s Fontus system attaches to the frame of a bicycle, and while it is moving, enables air to be funnelled over what is described as a “condensing structure,” reports the website City Lab.
The air is then turned into moisture through a “condensing structure,” which drips into a detachable PET bottle. It works best in humid, warm conditions, picked out in a darker shade of red in the map below.
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Retezár says: “Fontus can be applied in two different areas. Firstly, it may be interpreted as a sporty bicycle accessory.
“Useful on long bike tours, the constant search for freshwater sources such as rivers and gas stations can cease to be an issue since the bottle automatically fills itself up.
“Secondly, it might be a clever way of acquiring freshwater in regions of the world where groundwater is scarce but humidity is high.
“Experiments suggest that the bottle could harvest around 0.5 L water in one hour's time in regions with high temperature and humidity values.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- ktache 3 hours 28 min ago
The small frame, the aggressive posture, lots of standover height.
- mctrials23 4 hours 24 min ago
As i've said before, the police should be sued for a lot of money when someone they have knowingly ignored has gone on to commit a serious crime....
- David9694 4 hours 31 min ago
'Bad parking' blocks firefighters multiple times on same emergency call-out...
- David9694 4 hours 35 min ago
Cambridgeshire boy, 13, crashes Audi into garden wall after taking it from home...
- Adam Sutton 5 hours 21 min ago
Good stuff. Now do it on cycleway C9 through Hammersmith to Chiswick.
- mark1a 5 hours 30 min ago
It's technically allowed but it's not known as "London's Orbital Car Park" for nothing.
- Dogless 6 hours 38 min ago
You're defending bombing hospitals and refugee camps and starving children.
- mattw 9 hours 18 min ago
Used car salesman is a complete attention-seeking plank....
- tubasti 9 hours 35 min ago
I don't know if they're any better, but they's certainly become more boring.
- FionaJJ 10 hours 1 min ago
At risk of being cynical, and stereotyping the police, it's so they don't have to leave the comfort of their panda cars and pursue on foot when...
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4 comments
It also seems a little risky to rely on there being sufficient humidity to enable water to be collected. I wouldn't want to set off anywhere hostile with just a condenser so it's out of the game immediately as you would still (minor pun, there)need back-up if it couldn't keep up with the rate of evaporation from the body.
Round here we have bottles of what looks and tastes like Irn Bru left by concerned motorists at the side of the road. Saved my life more than once...
Well it interested me.
More so than Bono falling off a bike in a park....
I'd also want to see how it copes with dusty conditions, which are also often found in those areas on the map. A condensing structure is likely to have lots of fine fins or coils, to increase surface area, which would also get very quickly clogged with sand or dust.
I'm not sure this is newsworthy unless we have a quote from someone other than the designer to say it's likely to work better in some way than other fresh water systems.
I also don't see how it can be used two ways - if you have to cycle for an hour to generate 0.5 L of water it doesn't seem like a " clever way of acquiring freshwater " for people who don't have other reasons for cycling.
To clarify how it works, there's a solar panel which is used to power an electronic fridge (apparently based on the peltier effect), which keeps the condensing structure cold. This isn't a novel idea, so the question is whether this is a better application of it.