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Water scarcity is a huge global issue. More than 2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, a situation set to worsen due to climate change, which fuels longer and more severe drought. As reservoirs shrink, groundwater dries up and rainy seasons become more erratic, some believe one answer to this crisis lies in the reservoirs of moisture in our skies.
Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created a water harvesting device that is a window-sized panel made with absorbent material called "hydrogel," which has been infused with salt, folded up like origami and enclosed in glass.
The material, which looks like black bubble wrap, absorbs water vapor directly from the air, swelling up as it does so, then shrinking again as the water evaporates. The water condenses on the glass and flows down a tube to emerge as fresh, drinkable water. No power is needed, just heat from the sun.
The device doesn't produce a huge amount of water from the bone-dry air — around two-thirds of a cup a day — but the ultimate aim is to supply a household with drinking water even in arid deserts, said Xuanhe Zhao, a mechanical engineering professor at MIT.
Read more at the link in our bio.
📸: MIT
