AirQua provides alternative to bottled water

Appliance filters bacteria, purifies and conserves water

Thomas Cloud

of the Gateway

Parts of the world are beginning to face severe water shortages, and Jim Hendryx said the rest of the world may soon follow suit.

Hendryx, acting as the first sales manager in Washington for AirQua, said more efforts will be made to conserve water.

That’s where AirQua steps in with an appliance that extracts high-quality drinking water from the air.

“The company was started in Singapore, primarily because there is becoming a severe lack of potable drinking water in Asia and Africa,” said Hendryx, who has lived in Gig Harbor for the past 16 years.

The water extraction process draws air in through a vent and passes through an anti-bacterial filter. The water molecules are then crystallized so they coalesce, and then they’re put through a purification system.

Once through the purification system, the 99.9 percent pure water enters storage tanks for hot and cold water ready to drink.

The appliance is more than just a simple dehumidifier, Hendryx said.

“Being a dehumidifier is a byproduct; it’s in the business of providing drinking water,” he said.

In-home or small-office AirQua appliances cost $1,995 and can produce about 2 to 3 gallons of water daily in Washington, according to company materials.

“The appliances we have are Energy Star-rated and will use the same amount of energy a refrigerator uses,” Hendryx said.

The home version is about the size of a refrigerator.

“The beauty of this is you can just plug it in,” Hendryx said.

Hendryx said some of the added applications include “preparedness.”

“If we have something like (Hurricane) Katrina, instead of trucking bottled water in, we can bring in some appliances on a trailer with generators,” he said.

On average, New Orleans has a humidity of 88 percent and a temperature of 68 degrees. Using the largest version of AirQua’s appliance, which is 7 1/2 feet by 9 feet, almost 2,000 gallons of fresh drinking water could be produced daily, according to marketing materials.

Hendryx said AirQua provides an alternative to bottled water, and that’s how he hopes to sell the appliances in Washington.

“Our market is anyone using bottled water,” he said. “If you are spending $60 a month on bottled water, the appliance will pay for itself in three years, and it has a life expectancy of 10 years.”

On the Web

You can learn more about AirQua at www.airqua.com.

Reach intern Thomas Cloud at 253-853-9240 or by e-mail at thomascloud1@gmail.com.