Tamworth tech makes science fiction reality, sucks water from air with new Air Sponge technology

The Vesi Air Sponge technology acts like a wind trap from 'Dune', sucking water out of the moisture in the air, and could soon spell the end of droughts for everyone from small farm households to medium-sized towns.

The dream is that people in rural areas will no longer rely on rain for their water.

Vesi Water has spent two years proving that the technology works, developing the biggest of three prototypes just three weeks ago.

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Managing director Llewellyn Owens said the air sponge technology is so effective it turned the small room in the Tamworth CBD into a desert-like environment, leaving behind a tell-tale tube of water.

The next step is to turn the technological marvel into a household-scale commercial solution.

Vesi plans to produce its first 200 units in the next six to nine months. They're about to undertake a multi-million dollar capital raise to fund commercialisation.

"Commercializing any new technology is incredibly hard because you're doing something that no one has done before," he said.

"No one else has done what's being done in this little room here, because no one had this material. This is literally a new material.

"Each time the scientists get together, I think they figured out something new about the material, which then can fundamentally change how you actually use it. So we're learning on the go."

The technology relies on an entirely new synthetic material, graphene oxide.

The nanomaterial has essentially two dimensions, because it is just one atom wide.

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That makes it both malleable and absorptive - but also so cutting edge, the firm had to fly in an expert from Japan to advise them on design.

"What's really exciting is how quickly it absorbs and desorbs. And that allows us to actually do really quick cycles, collect a lot of water and make it into drinking water," he said.

The idea is that the equipment will serve a range of remote communities from outback farms all the way up to established settlements, freeing them from the need to access surface or groundwater which can prove scarce or even run out entirely in a drought.

There's no need for expensive filtration or desalination processes, because the water is completely pure.

The initial technology is designed to produce 200 litres of water per unit per day, but the company plans to produce equipment that will produce 10,000 litres in a day or even bigger than that, in the medium-term.

"So our vision is this can go the same directions where solar went for electricity," he said.

"This allows you to literally use renewable energy to have water where you need, it changes the whole way you get water, you don't need to rely on that pipeline, you can rely on your tanks, and a Vesi water unit."

Their big plans for the future mean the company will soon move out of the small shop above Peel Street.

One of the next steps is to set up a pilot manufacturing facility, to produce the goods at commercial scale, hopefully in the New England region.

The company received assistance by the University of New England, Apollo Engineering, engineering firm GHD, industrial design firm D+I and they will receive assistance by the CSIRO in future.

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