These teams are competing to create devices that can extract water from thin air

Clean water is a necessity, but as recent events in Cape Town have shown, securing it isn't so easy.

That looming challenge has led to a competition called the Water Abundance XPRIZE. It's getting teams to build technology which can extract a minimum of 2,000 litres of water per day from the atmosphere, using 100 percent renewable energy, at a cost of two cents a litre.

One of the five finalists is Behdad Moghtaderi from Australia's University of Newcastle, whose team has developed a process which heats the air first, before cooling it. Read more...