Inventor Ap Verheggen will receive the Over Hoop Prize 2021 (25,000 euros) for the SunGlacier, a device that condenses water vapor from the outside air and thus produces water in a place where it does not appear to be. The invention was previously presented at the World Expo in Dubai. The king and queen already visited the installation there and even needed an umbrella. The SunGlacier produced 1,200 liters of water per day, which came down like rain. Outside it was sweltering and bone dry.
The annual Over Hoop Prize is awarded by the Over Holland Foundation and is for an initiative that has positively disrupted something at the interface of culture and society in the past year. That can be anything, previously it went, for example, to the Bedside Singers, a choir that sings for the seriously ill.
So now the organization chooses someone who seems to conjure up water. “The need is clear. More than 700 million people worldwide have no access to drinking water. Experts predict that the wars of the future will be about water if nothing happens,” says the foundation.
scale up
Verheggen can do something about that, with a solar panel, a battery, a water pump, a cooler and a barrel. Since 2010, he has worked on the SunGlacier. “Now it’s the turn of companies, scientists and engineers to scale up this technology,” the foundation said. There is also a smaller version than the one in Dubai, the Droppler 20, which produces approximately 30 liters per day. It was developed with Defense support for dry and hot areas such as Mali.
Verheggen is also working on a backpack model. Worldwide distribution of the invention is only a matter of time, the foundation hopes with Verheggen.
The jury chaired by Jan Christiaan Braun received a total of 127 nominations, but chose the SunGlacier unanimously. The nominated initiatives were very diverse, ranging from the much-discussed new Depot of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam and Ramsey Nasr with his book De Fundamenten to Teun Toebes, who went to live in a nursing home as part of his fight for a better quality of life for people with disabilities. dementia and wrote the book Nursing Home about it.