Whale-Shaped Boat Concept Purifies World’s Rivers

High-tech meets environmental cleanup in the Physalia concept, a self-sustaining mobile ecosystem that is 100 percent renewable-powered. It is a large, whale-shaped floating garden that uses bio filtration to cleanse polluted river water. The vessel creates solar power using integrated thin-film solar panels and draws hydropower from the moving water beneath.

Where there aren’t solar panels, the Physalia is covered with a green roof through which water is pumped to filter out contaminants. There are four individual gardens, each themed in line with one of the four natural elements; earth, wind, fire and water. The exterior of the boat is also coated with titanium dioxide (TiO2) that reacts with ultraviolet rays to clean the water.

The Physalia is inspired by the physalia physalis, a jellyfish whose Latin name approximately translates to “water bubble.” Fittingly, the Physalia watercraft is meant to meander the world’s major rivers, cleaning up as it goes. The design comes from Vincent Callebaut, the utopian architect behind two other unique eco-friendly and high-tech designs; the Lilypad, a floating eco-city for climate change refugees, and the Dragonfly, a vertical farm designed to provide mass amounts of food in dense urban environments.

Posted on January 19th in Solar News by Dan.