Scientists and engineers at the University of Texas in Austin, USA, have developed a low-cost solution that could help people in arid areas access clean drinking water.
The team has developed a low-cost gel film made of abundant materials that can harvest water from the available moisture in the air in even the driest climates. The materials used in this film cost only $2 per kilogram and 6 litres of water can be harvested using one kilogram of the material every day. The system works even in areas with 15 percent relative humidity. The gel-film can harvest up to 13 litres of water in areas with relative humidity up to 30 percent, reported Science Daily.
The materials used are renewable cellulose and a common kitchen ingredient, konjac gum, which make up the main hydrophilic (attracted to water) skeleton. The film has an open-pore structure of gum that speeds up the moisture-capturing process. Another component is a thermo-responsive cellulose with hydrophobic (resistant to water) interaction when heated. This helps release the collected water immediately so that overall energy input to produce water is minimised.
The film is flexible and can be moulded into a variety of shapes and sizes. To make the film, one would only need the gel precursor, which includes all the relevant ingredients poured into a mold.
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The current research builds on previous breakthroughs from the same team. They earlier developed technology with the ability to capture water from the atmosphere, which was applied to create self-watering soil. However, the previous technologies were designed only for relatively high-humidity environments.
"The gel takes 2 minutes to set simply. Then, it just needs to be freeze-dried, and can be peeled off the mould and used immediately after that," Weixin Guan, a doctoral student and a lead researcher in the project, told Science Daily.
Previous attempts by other researchers at pulling water from desert air have been energy-intensive and with not so great outputs. The gel-film’s ability to produce six litres may not sound like much, but the researchers say there is scope for creating thicker films or absorbent beds with optimisation that could substantially increase the water yield.
According to Guihua Yu, the director of the project, this new system could help millions of people around the world who lack access to consistent drinking water. The gel-film can be used in simple water generating devices that people can easily operate at their homes.
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has funded the research. The objective of the project was to find solutions to provide drinking water for soldiers in arid climates. However, the researchers now envision the system as something that people could buy at a hardware store in future to use in their homes.
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