{"id":96969,"title":"DAIVIN! - We let humans breathe underwater (without oxygen tanks!)","tagline":"We use electrolysis to extract oxygen from water and convert it into breathable gas for divers","body":"Hey everyone I´m [Leo](https://www.linkedin.com/in/leo-kankkunen/), the founder of [DAIVIN!](https://www.daivin.tech/)\n\n**TL;DR**\\\nDid you know, a single bottle of water contains enough oxygen to **sustain a** **human for a day?**\n\nDAIVIN uses electrolysis to extract the oxygen from water and convert it into breathable gas for divers, enabling tankless underwater breathing limited only by battery duration.\n\nDemo video: \u003chttps://youtu.be/r5HfL8Bw0dw\u003e\n\n👤 **The Team**\\\nHi I’m Leo, I’m an electrical engineer with seven years of experience in the electrical industry and the youngest person in Finland to achieve the highest national electrical certification, authorizing me to independently execute and sign off complex electrical power lines. I’m also a certified diver and served in the military.\n\n# ❌ **The Problem**\n\nUnderwater diving technology hasn’t changed in almost 100 years, and is rife with problems:\n\n1. **Intense oxygen tank logistics.** Oxygen tanks hard-limit where, when, and how long a dive can happen. In elite and remote operations, logistics - not depth or physics - sets the limits on mobility, mission flexibility, safety, and cost.\n2. **Unsafe by design:** Pressurized gas systems add mass, failure modes, and cognitive load, making diving roughly **1,000× more dangerous than flying**. DAIVIN! replaces stored gas with on-demand oxygen generated from water.\n3. **Slow and exposed:** Bulky gear forces divers to move \\~5× slower than walking, extending task time and exposure. DAIVIN! reduces bulk and drag to restore underwater mobility.\n4. **Cost-prohibitive** Professional dive systems cost tens of thousands of dollars, with helium exceeding **$100 per tank**.\n\n# ✅ **Our Solution: Apply electricity to the water around you and dive safer, longer, and deeper than ever**\n\nDAIVIN! removes tanks entirely, enabling missions to start anywhere with a shoebox-sized system.\\\n\\\n\\*\\*Put on the vest:\\*\\*\\\nYou wear a lightweight vest with triple-redundant electrolyzers.\n\n\\*\\*Strap on the batteries:\\*\\*\\\nA lightweight battery belt replaces the traditional weight belt. The system is quadruple-redundant at the circuitry level, meaning that even if a wire were to fail, three independent paths per electrolyzer maintain continuous gas generation.\n\n**Electrolyzing H₂O**\\\nOur device uses the resource you are already in: water. We apply traditional electrolysis, where DC current splits the water molecule (H₂O) into oxygen (O₂) for breathing and hydrogen (H₂), enabling deep diving to depths of 200 meters / 650 ft without nitrogen narcosis, oxygen toxicity or dependence on expensive helium.\n\n\\*\\*Dive Freely:\\*\\*\\\nIf decompression is required, decompression time is reduced because hydrogen exits body tissues faster than nitrogen. If entangled, a single palm sized battery can provide **up to one hour of additional breathing time**. If operating remotely with no support team, recharge anywhere using solar power. No tank logistics. No cognitive load.\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=96969\u0026key=user_uploads/1925087/29ed7bd4-aeaf-449a-b96e-e3ab81eb7a3d)\n\n# **✨Future**\n\nToday, oxygen is treated as a logistics problem: moving heavy, pressurized gas from point A to point B. That framing is wrong. Oxygen is fundamentally an **energy problem**.\n\nWhere logistics break down, on-demand generation wins. In crisis zones or at high altitude, carrying tanks is a liability. It is far more efficient to carry - or source - water and convert it into oxygen when needed, whether for wounded personnel or climbers operating far from support.\n\nThe same logic applies to space. A pressurized oxygen tank is limited in gas supply, but water is abundant, and already present. In space, we won’t transport air; we’ll extract oxygen from ice.\n\nEven in airplanes and hospitals, oxygen delivery still relies on bulky tanks or legacy systems like pressure swing adsorption that consume space and deliver lower purity oxygen. From first principles, water plus electricity yields the highest-purity oxygen possible.\n\nWe’ve been hauling the container when we should have been bringing the source.\n\n# 🌊 **How you can help!**\n\n* If you know professional or commercial divers, We´d love to speak with them.\n* 📧 [leo.kankkunen@daivin.tech](mailto:leo.kankkunen@daivin.tech)\n* Follow us on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/daivin/), [X](https://x.com/DAIVIN_TECH) and check our [Website](https://www.daivin.tech/)\n* **Share this post!**","slug":"PE1-daivin-we-let-humans-breathe-underwater-without-oxygen-tanks","created_at":"2026-01-23T05:08:49.579Z","updated_at":"2026-06-20T19:19:48.214Z","total_vote_count":32,"url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/PE1-daivin-we-let-humans-breathe-underwater-without-oxygen-tanks","share_image_url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/media/?type=post\u0026id=96969\u0026key=user_uploads/1925087/5f35db5a-8157-46f5-a4c7-86a6cd18ccf1","company":{"id":31287,"name":"DAIVIN!","slug":"daivin","url":"https://www.daivin.tech/","logo":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/88f15feafc1401a5c940397e2d93e236914265b4.png","batch":"Winter 2026","industry":"Industrials","tags":[],"search_path":"https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/31287"}}