Rain-Catching Coat Purifies Water for Drinking
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An image of the Raincatch coat designed by Hyeona Yang and Joshua Noble at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design in Denmark.
CREDIT: Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design in Denmark |
Most wet weather gear aims only to shrug off rainwater and perhaps help people look stylish under stormy conditions. The "Raincatch" garment takes a step beyond both umbrellas and raincoats by capturing, filtering and storing rainwater in case the wearer gets thirsty later on.
Raincatch represents a marriage of existing technology by Hyeona Yang and Joshua Noble at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design in Denmark. The two designers modified existing raincoats so that rain collected in the collar would filter down the back of the coat, pass through chemically purifying charcoal filters and end up stored around the coat hips.
The prototype design may not win fashion awards with the transparent tubes lining the coat's front and hanging around the wearer's neck, but the tubes give a clear view of all the water-sipping action. It also maintains a relatively clean if baggy look, despite its capacities to store water.
Such a project is also small step toward wilder science fiction clothing designs that harness for drinking any and all available moisture. In Frank Herbert's 1965 novel "Dune," desert tribes wear "stillsuits" that capture, purify and store any liquids lost from sweating under the scorching sun of the fictional planet Arrakis. The suits also supposedly reused liquids from bodily waste .
NASA has already deployed plenty of water purification devices aboard the International Space Station and its retired space shuttle fleet, but has not yet created spacesuits capable of recapturing and reusing liquids from the human body.
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