Challenge Addressed:
Cape Town uses about 300-million cubic metres of water per year, and on average, around 4x that amount (1200 million cubic metres) falls on the city each year as rain. Current affordable rain harvesting solutions such as Jojo tanks do not provide sufficient water supply storage to last more than a few weeks. Water cisterns that can supply an average family for a practical period of time are too expensive, even for middle class families. If we can find low cost method to create effective water batteries at different scales, we can improve water resiliency for homes and community scale.
Proposed Solution:
A low cost water cistern built using ferro-cement, traditional earth construction techniques, or 3D printing that can store tens or hundreds of thousands of litre of water, coupled with modular, multiple modes of passive water harvesting including rain, fog and subterranean condensation, with use determined by climate and geological conditions.The cistern also has a passive filtration section that filters water for potable water use.
Desired Hackathon Goal:
1 Literature review
2. Determine economic feasibility
3. Explore design alternatives
4. Design modularity and standard permutations for different climate and application scenarios
Resources Needed:
- water purification researcher or engineer
- mechanical engineer
- cement or building scale 3D printing technologist
- maker
- Industrial designer with 3D CAD experience.
