The Watercone is an ingenious device that can take salty water and turn it into fresh water using only the power of the sun. The nice thing about this device is it is bone simple, uses the sun instead of fossil fuel, and is cheap to make and easy to use.

The Watercone is surprisingly a cone, that you place over a pan of salty water (or over a marsh, or any damp ground) leave it out in the sun, water evaporates, the condensation trickles down the side of the cone, at the end of the day you flip it over, remove the cap at the top and drink the water.

This device has the potential to really do a lot of good for a lot of people. So many people live in areas where the ground water has been polluted by salt incursion due to over pumping, or in areas that simply don’t have large fresh water sources (south pacific islands, sub-Saharan Africa, south-east Asia). The Watercone is made from UV resistant plastic and they claim that it will last up to five years, after which it can be used to collect rainwater and funnel it into bottles.

They claim that on average one Watercone can produce one liter of water per-day. I could image a whole fleet of these things for a village. They float, so you could place them over a small pool of salt water and just collect fresh water all day. At about 20 Euros it would pay for itself in a couple of months and provide potable water for the next 4-5 years. It is also recyclable and non-flammable.

The Watercone website has some really interesting information and I highly recommend checking it out.