Dune Stillsuit Brought To Life By YouTuber Scientists
For decades, sci-fi movies and series have inspired scientists and engineers to push the limits of contemporary technology to reach new, previously unobtainable goals. If you think that’s not true, look at the touchscreen on your tablet device; both were inspired by Star Trek.
Now, in the latest news, a YouTuber scientist made a Dune still suit that can recycle sweat, similar to the one we’ve seen in recent Dune adaptations of Frank Herbert’s 1965 Dune sci-fi novel.
Water is precious on the fictional desert planet of Arrakis, and its brave natives, called the Fremen, wear a full-body suit called a “still suit” that can preserve all of the body’s moisture with the help of a built-in filter that recycles both the wearer’s sweat and their urine. That way, the suit replenishes the wearer’s water levels, eliminating the need for water for a really long time.
Now, that suit has become somewhat of a reality as engineers at The Hacksmith YouTube channel tried their hand at creating a Dune stillsuit, and they were surprisingly successful.
Building a simple stillsuit relies on some pretty simple technology, and it’s not as nearly as far-fetched as it seems in the movies. While the concept is still fictional for the most part, the recently made Dune stillsuit recycles the wearer’s sweat.
The DIY version of a Dune stillsuit is a Tyvek suit—a type of protective garment that’s often used in industrial, medical, and environmental applications—with an off-the-rack Dune costume worn on top.
We guess that recycling urine into drinkable water requires some ISS-grade technology. Despite that singular constriction, the DIY Dune stillsuit doesn’t really look nearly as great and futuristic as the one we’ve seen in the movies recently.
The DIY version of a Dune stillsuit is a Tyvek suit—a type of protective garment that’s often used in industrial, medical, and environmental applications—with an off-the-rack Dune costume worn on top.
The inner workings of the Dune stillsuit rely on the thermoelectric cooler…
Still, engineers at The Hacksmith made the suit to collect the body’s moisture and allow one of the team members to drink it through a tube. We’re not discussing a sleek, thin tube that goes inside the wearer’s nostrils but what appears to be a plastic hose similar to one used on washing machines for water disposal.
The inner workings of the Dune stillsuit rely on the thermoelectric cooler, which is a small-gridded device that’s usually used to cool various appliances. The cold side of the device resides within the suit, where it attracts moisture in the trapped air inside the suit, acting like a dehumidifier.
…the DIY Dune stillsuit doesn’t really look nearly as great and futuristic as the one we’ve seen in the movies recently.
At the same time, a drinking bladder, combined with a consumer-grade water filter bought at a local sports store, filters the collected moisture, resulting in drinkable water for the wearer to consume.
A single-day DIY build of a Dune stillsuit won’t help you survive in the scorching desert environments, but it’s still a good proof of concept and goes to show just how much you can achieve with a bit of duct tape, a protective suit, and a plastic hose—yes, we know how that sounds, but we’re referring to the DIY Dune stillsuit, not live re-enacting of Dexter.
