 |
Harvest Water From Air With Sunlight
This water harvesting device has been field-tested in the Mohave Desert. The harvester produced seven-tenths of a liter per kilogram of absorber per day; that's about three cups of water. The harvester can run twenty-four hours per day, powered by solar panels and a battery.
Water Harvesting Inc., is now testing and will soon market a device the size of a microwave oven that can supply 7 to 10 liters of water per day: enough drinking and cooking water for two to three adults per day, based on recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences that men should consume 3.7 liters and women 2.7 liters of fluid per day.
An even larger version of the harvester, one the size of a small refrigerator, will provide 200 to 250 liters of water per day, enough for a household to drink, cook and shower. And in a couple of years, the company hopes to have a village-scale harvester that will produce 20,000 liters per day. All would run on power from solar panels and a battery or off the electrical grid.
The harvester’s secret ingredient is a type of MOF [metal-organic framework] invented by Yaghi and his UC Berkeley colleagues that easily and quickly takes up water from the air and just as readily disgorges it so the water can be collected. MOFs, which Yaghi has been developing since the mid-1990s, are so porous that a gram has a surface area equivalent a football field.
Fans of Star Wars of course recall the vaporators essential to farming the deserts of Tatooine:
For human purposes, however, the water of Tatooine was only marginally accessible. The atmosphere yielded its moisture with reluctance. It had to be coaxed down out of the hard blue sky -- coaxed, forced, yanked down to the parched surface.
(Moisture Vaporator from Star Wars)Two figures whose concern was obtaining that moisture were standing on the slight rise of one of those inhospitable flats. One of the pair was stiff and metallic -- a sand pitted vaporator sunk securely through sand and into deeper rock. The figure next to it was a good deal more animated, though no less sun weathered.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 9/5/2019)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Engineering ")
Road Noise Charges Electric Cars With Peugeot Piezoelectric Billboard
''... major cities of Earth have free electrical power conveniently processed from their own noise.' - Lloyd Biggle, Jr. 1956.
California Gets Shockwave Rider-Style Avoidance Zones
'It was cheaper to pay the refugees to go without up-to-the-minute equipment.'
Helios Modular Touch Screen Wall Lights
'The walls and ceiling bore an irregular spacing of illuminum tiles...' - Richard Morgan, 2003.
Harvest Water From Air With Sunlight
'The atmosphere yielded its moisture with reluctance.' - George Lucas, 1976.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Current News
Road Noise Charges Electric Cars With Peugeot Piezoelectric Billboard
''... major cities of Earth have free electrical power conveniently processed from their own noise.'
Unsinkable Metal Latest Gates Obsession
'A metal... light as cork.'
M-Blocks 2.0 Self-Assembling Robots
'Faster the cubes moved...'
NASA 'Broomstick' Recalls SciFi Ideas
'The appearance was enough like a giant witch's broom to justify the nickname.'
Orbital Display's Low Earth Orbit Advertisements
'A vast circle of scarlet stars came up into the greenish desert dusk.'
Neuromorphic Computing Hardare
'He had constructed an organ, a brain, of metal, entirely inorganic and lifeless...'
Vascularized Human Skin 3D Printed
Hey Fishboy!
Trillionaires Still Earth-Bound
'I shall never forget the sight... when the yellow gleam of the precious metal appeared under the star dust.'
Digit V2 Bipedal Robot From Agility Robotics
Oh, and now I suppose someone will develop the robotic porch pirate.
3D Printed Dubai Building Is World's Largest
'This thing will start at one end of ...a house and build it complete to the other end, following drawings only.'
Grow Plants On Moon Or Mars!
'In contrast to the airless desolation outside, the interior of this five-acre greenhouse was the one most desirable place to be.'
California Gets Shockwave Rider-Style Avoidance Zones
'It was cheaper to pay the refugees to go without up-to-the-minute equipment.'
Microbot Interstellar von Neumann Explorers
'Evidently they have never had a planet of their own...'
Hail SmartCan! Your Trash Bin Takes Itself Out
'...a waste can twenty feet away stirred into life.'
Finally! Microsoft Surface Neo And Surface Duo Implement Excellent Courier Idea
'Runcible, whose pages were thicker and more densely packed with computational machinery...'
Tap Strap 2 Now With Air Mouse
'He waved his hand and the circuit switched abruptly.'
