This Floating Pod Converts Seawater To Drinking Water

Meet the WaterPod, a sustainable floating pod that converts seawater into drinking water. Designed by Bennie Beh Hue May, Yap Chun Yoon, and Loo Xin Yang, the contraption can generate drinkable water through a natural desalination process. The team of designers was recognized by The James Dyson Award for their conceptual design. Here’s how the pod would operate: 

WaterPod operates as a self-cleaning solar desalination system that absorbs seawater via underwater wicks, inspired by mangrove trees, which then passes through a condensation and evaporation process to remove the salt particles from the seawater. Just like mangrove trees, WaterPod’s underwater wicks fill the pod with seawater until its water levels reach the pod’s black fabric dome. Inside the dome, seawater undergoes evaporation as water vapors gradually flow from the transparent covering and collect in WaterPod’s storage compartment. Then, users can pump drinking water from the storage compartment’s recess. While the desalination process takes place, the WaterPod remains floating atop the water in a similar fashion to a conventional buoy. WaterPod’s top lid is filled with expanded polyurethane foam for thermal insulation and flotation enhancement while a cement base offers buoyancy stability.

Image credit: via Yanko Design