Written by Julie Jernigan, Staff Writer

California and other parts of the world are experiencing extreme drought problems, so conserving water is a must right now. Since only 2.5 percent of the Earth’s water is drinkable, we need to come up with new ways to access drinkable water before we run out. Kristof Retezár, a designer in Vienna, did just that when he invented the Fontus water bottle.

According to techinsider.io, the Fontus water bottle, “…takes in moisture from the surrounding air, and can produce clean, drinkable water in under an hour.”

Retezár didn’t want to rely on difficult purification systems, but wanted to invent something simple that everyone can use. The device hooks on to a bicycle, because it is the main mode of transportation in drought ridden/poverty stricken cities, and Retezár wanted something convenient to them. This water bottle merely uses condensation from the humidity that’s in the air. As the air flows into the bottle, it hits a series of hydrophobic “teeth” which look like toothbrush brittles, and help turn the water vapor into water droplets. There is also a solar panel on the top of the water bottle to keep the device charged.

“The bottle works best between 86 degrees and 104 degrees Fahrenheit and between 80 and 90 percent humidity,” Retezár said in Techinsider.io.

This bottle would definitely work in the heat of South Georgia summers.

The Fontus could revolutionize the way we access clean drinking water, which could change the world. The down-side to this device is the fact that it only hooks on to a bike during transport to catch air, and not by sitting somewhere, but Retezár is working on it.

This neat water bottle is still in testing mode, so there are still some kinks they still need to work out like the filtration system that can filter out large contaminates like bugs, but not small like sediments. The creator hopes to optimize the device to work better in air-polluted cities, according livescience.com. The website also reports that the prototype currently cost $40 to make, but the company hopes to lower the cost with buying cheaper materials.

There is no current date for the release of the Fontus water bottle, and the company is working on making a website for crowd funding to help. The price for the water bottle is a little steep. Livescience.com reports that the future price of the water bottle will be under $100, but can you really put a price on saving the earth?

Hopefully, this project can get off the ground, because this change is the first step in making our earth great again.