The unit is a floating counter-current cooling tower, in which fresh water cooled at a depth captures and cools the atmospheric air, from which it condenses water. Solar radiation falling on the surface of the sea, evaporates moisture from it. Moist air is sucked by the fan into the cooling tower nozzle, cooled by fresh water jets flowing from the spray nozzles at the top of the nozzle.

Due to contact with cold water, moist air is cooled, the moisture contained in it is condensed and mixed with the source water, that is, the unit does not have an upper water-air heat exchanger (more precisely, it is, but it is contact), which greatly simplifies and reduces the cost of construction makes it more compact and resistant to damage and contamination.
 
Under the conditions of the combination of heating/cooling media and condensation of moisture in one of them, traditional heat exchangers work very poorly, the condensate film constantly flowing down the heat exchanger has a low thermal conductivity, which makes heat exchange difficult.

The contact heat exchanger used in this design, in which the media contact each other directly rather than exchanging heat through the wall, is in this respect a very successful solution.