During this time, he was inspired by the works of Maimonides, a Sephardic Jew who wrote in Arabic about 1,000 years ago and who mentioned the use of water condensers or Air wells in Palestine.
Kalphake went on to test several forms of air wells in Yugoslavia and on Vis Island in the Adriatic Sea.
Although the system apparently worked, it was expensive and Klaphake finally adopted a more compact design based on a masonry structure.
According to Klaphake: The building produces water during the day and cools itself during the night; when the sun rises, the warm air is drawn through the upper holes into the building by the out-flowing cooler air, becomes cooled on the cold surface, deposits its water, which then oozes down and is collected somewhere underneath.
Klaphake was an individualist and quietly antagonistic towards the Nazi regime, but he kept his views to himself and he was not much troubled directly by the authorities.
[1][4] In 1935, Klaphake and his wife Maria emigrated to Australia, living at first in Melbourne and then moving to Sydney the following year.
Klaphake made a specific proposal for a condenser at the small town of Cook where there was no supply of potable water.
At Cook, the railway company had previously installed a large coal-powered active condenser, but it was prohibitively expensive to run, and it was cheaper to simply transport water.
[citation needed] Klaphake was a chemist by training, but also excelled in other branches of the natural sciences such as physics and botany.