MIT researchers have developed a “window-sized” device that can pull drinking water straight out of the air—even in the most inhospitable arid desert conditions.
Billions around the world lack access to safe drinking water. Even here in the United States, as many as 46 million are drinking unsafe water or have unsafe water coming out of their taps. MIT is looking to try to change that.
Its passive atmospheric water harvester is a sleek panel that looks like black bubble wrap. It’s only a prototype for now, but it runs silently and autonomously. The team tested it in Death Valley, and it still managed to squeeze up to 160 milliliters of clean water a day from air.
How Did MIT Do It?
What makes it all work is a hydrogel laced with a compound called glycerol, which keeps salt from leaching into water. The hydrogel is the black bubble wrap-like structure I mentioned earlier. The dome-like shape of it helps maximize area as it absorbs water vapor at night, which it releases during the day.
Not only does it work, but it works across a range of humidity levels, from bone-dry deserts to places so damp it feels like you’re walking through hot water. Theoretically, an array of these panels could produce enough clean water for a household.
MIT’s researchers are already dreaming of scaling it up. The vertical design means it barely takes up space, and stacking multiple panels could create off-grid drinking water systems for rural villages, climate disaster zones, or any place with a too-distant water source.
This technology is not going to avert any global water crisis anytime soon. But it, alongside other similar advancements, like one team of researchers trying to harvest water from fog, will help people without access to water finally be able to scrounge up enough to survive.
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