Imagine a future in which every home has an appliance that pulls all the water the household needs out of the air, even in dry or desert climates, using only the power of the sun.
That future may be around the corner, with the demonstration this week of a water harvester that uses only ambient sunlight to pull liters of water out of the air each day in conditions as low as 20 percent humidity, a level common in arid areas.
Imagine a future in which every home has an appliance that pulls all the water the household needs out of the air, even in dry or desert climates, using only the power of the sun.
That future may be around the corner, with the demonstration this week of a water harvester that uses only ambient sunlight to pull liters of water out of the air each day in conditions as low as 20 percent humidity, a level common in arid areas.
The solar-powered harvester, reported in the journal Science, was constructed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology using a special material — a metal-organic framework, or MOF — produced at the University of California, Berkeley
Read more at University of California – Berkeley
Photo: The water harvester, built at MIT, uses MOFs synthesized at Berkeley to suck water from dry air. The harvester uses sunlight to heat the MOF, driving off the water vapor and condensing it for use.
Photo Credits: Hyunho Kim
