While there’s no imminent drinking water crisis in the U.S., technology like this can be helpful abroad – Anthony
Powered only by solar energy, a new device developed at MIT could provide relief to regions where water is scarce.
A device developed by Evelyn Wang, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, harvests clean drinking water from vapor in the air, even in arid conditions.
With droughts plaguing much of the western United States and millions of people across the globe living without access to safe water, the need for technologies that produce clean water is greater than ever. The key, according to Evelyn Wang, the Gail E. Kendall Professor and department head for MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, is in the very air we breathe.
“Water vapor is all around us in the air, even in arid conditions,” explains Wang. She and her team in MIT’s Device Research Laboratory have developed a device that can tap into this abundant resource and literally pull water out of thin air.
The key to the process is a powder that desiccates the air, attracting vapor directly to the porous matrix at the base of the device’s main chamber like a sponge. The vapor is then condensed into liquid and can be collected as usable water – even in dry atmospheres with as low as 20 percent humidity.
The entire process of converting the water vapor found in air into potable water can be done using only the power of the sun. “The device is completely passive,” says Wang. “There is no need to use outside power supplies which can help keep the device low-cost and efficient.”
Keeping costs low and efficiency high is one of Wang’s central goals. “We hope to develop a device that provides relief to the millions of people living in communities that lack the infrastructure needed to provide access to clean drinking water or those living in regions plagued by drought,” adds Wang.
During a field test in Tempe, Arizona earlier this year, a small proof-of-concept prototype of the device extracted a quarter-liter of water per day per kilogram of the absorbent powder. The researchers hope to increase this output by further tailoring the powder and optimizing the device.
If the production capacity of the device can be increased, Wang’s research could have a tangible impact in places experiencing water scarcity — even in the driest of conditions.
Submitted by: Mary Beth O’Leary / Department of Mechanical Engineering | Video by: John Freidah | 1 min, 23 sec
Oh yum, water with chemical absorbant leeched in it. Could not possibly be carcinogenic.
Wow, talk about mold problems. Assuming in deserts, it is not clogged by dust.
The implication is the absorbant is a one-way street and won’t absorb moisture out of the box and release it into the atmosphere.
I would think that you could do this without the desiccant powder. Many refrigeration type air coolers are also dehumidifiers and pull water from the air. Powering these systems via solar panels is straight forward. I have a little window air conditioner and the instructions say that is important to tilt the unit so that the condensed water does not drip into the room. The air conditional in my car also pulls water form the air. I notice it dripping when I part the car on my driveway. What is so wonderful about what they are doing compared to what is already on the market?
Yes, I have to agree that is a much better solution.
This isn’t the first time this has come up.
Great debunking of Zero Mass Water solar powered water maker.
The headline is wrong. It should read “New device from MIT pulls grant money out of thin air”
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They did that in India then had to go back and tell people not to use them due to high arsenic content of water from the wells. I hope you test yours.
When a cup of the powder produces a gallon of water per hour for under 50 cents, have them send me one and I’ll test it for a year and write a review.
How well does it work at -10°F ?
Been there, done than.
DUNE.
But in Dune, the still suit collected the moisture out of their breath, and recycled the sweat from their skin. While the method of filtration/processing was left out (it is, after all, a FICTION book!), at least it wasn’t creating water that didn’t exist.
Moisture farming?
I had an Uncle Owen who was into that back in the 70s… 🙂
And you get mushrooms too… great!
“Keeping costs low and efficiency high is one of Wang’s central goals. “We hope to develop a device that provides relief to the millions of people living in communities that lack the infrastructure needed to provide access to clean drinking water”
Water for millions – in arid conditions. Wait and see.
Developing nations need infrastructure for water just like developed nations have. We don’t use solar stills in Arizona do we? No, water is collected from distant sources and distributed where it is needed. This is a typical scheme out of academia ‘ to help’ those disposable people in developing nations without putting the planet at risk by ‘ using too much water’. Of course, the academics can use as much water as they want as they live in a developed nation. Sounds like the other ‘ solutions’ for the developing nations rolled out by the wizards of oz in academia, like improved apparatus for burning dung, instead of fossils to make electricity. What did Ehrlich day? “ Giving humanity affordable energy would be like giving a child a loaded gun’ or something to that effect. But Erhlich lived with affordable
Energy and sacrificed nothing. The ‘masses’ simply aren’t intelligent enough to determine future. Such is the ideology of a Marxist/Environmentalist. In other words, a Globalist. Weren’t solar stills first intended for space travel?
Hasn’t this “technology” been around for hundreds of years, a solar still/condenser?
No. A condenser doesn’t require ‘magic pixie dust’ to produce water.
An air conditioner accomplishes the same effect.
A quarter-liter of water per day per kilogram of the absorbent powder.” How much does the powder cost?
From the description it doesn’t seem like the powder is a catalyst and is consumed in the water process?
.25 liters of water/day/kilo of powder doesn’t seem like a very efficient process to me. A kilo is roughly 2.2lbs. So, to produce 1,000 liters (264 gallons) of water/day you’d need 8,800 lbs (4+ tons) of this ‘powder’. If it is is consumed in the process I don’t see it as being in the least practical.
Hitch a commercially available air well up to a solar cell on the roof and you get more than a quarter litre per unit volume of condenser surface. Add a battery pack so it runs at night when less work is needed to extract the humidity and you may have a winner. Still is is progress. The catch is zerolite volume and surface area is not the most power hungry thing the fans are.
I’m working on a farm air well. That’s harder but could work using a ground loop system. I really need a lab.
How much does a hole and a plastic sheet produce in same environment? That’s a survival trick for those wondering what I’m blathering about.
I have been collecting 2-3 litres of water dripping out my RV AC in the desert for many years. Especially productive at night when relative humidity is a lot higher. If I drink it, I gravity filter it for safety although I generally boil this water for my pot of coffee in the morning.
But really nothing new here…even the magic powder has been available for years as a dehumidifiing agent in the RV industry, for when you park your RV and want to ensure lower humidity in a certain area, such as those little packaging pellets that absorb moisture. What will be interesting is if they can drastically increase the efficiency of this process for a potable water supply. It would be a useful emergency back up to have in a very dry environment to ensure some drinking water to stay alive. Obviously, this isn’t proposed for any industrial sized water supply for more than pure drinking water and then only where getting a sufficient water source is already a challenge. So, if a 500 ml water bottle is with a buck, this might be worth a shot. Or more if you are dying of thirst in the desert.
Their “powder” is probably a zeolite. Zeolites can absorb quite a bit of water without any change in volume. The water can be baked out again, and the zeolite can be re-used.
So, likely they have a zeolite that absorbs 10% its weight in water (1 kg produces 250 gm of water). The copper condensation stage might be a Peltier cooler, driven by solar power.
It’s a nice experiment, but one doubts it will ever produce useful amounts of water. Perhaps it could be an emergency water back-up for one person who is desert-bound.
You want useful water from the air? Try fog-harvesters.
EXPLETIVE ! EXPLETIVE ! EXPLETIVE !
This reads : HAVE WEIRD AND WONDERFUL CONCEPT !
SHOULD EARN ME another PhD ( in wishful thinking at least ! )
NOW…..YOU GUILT-RIDDEN , DESCENDANTS OF SLAVE OWNERS , RACIST , HOMOPHOBIC ,
SEXIST BIGOTS………….SEND ME LARGE SUMS OF MONEY TO ASSUAGE YOUR GUILT NOW !
You have been warned !!
.
God spare us ! It is a concept at a very basic level and entirely unsuitable for anything
except use in a laboratory ! Perhaps she can audition for “STAR TREK” THE RETURN !
I’m not believing the claims. To condense water you need to pull heat out of the vapor. There’s no getting around it. You can’t fool thermodynamics. Where are you going to put the heat? The vid shows some kind of device under the little glass box. What’s that?
Actually, it’s worse than that. I just reviewed the video again. First, they expose the desiccant to air, it absorbs moisture, until saturated or until time is up, whichever comes first, I guess. THEN, to separate the moisture from the desiccant, you must apply heat. So this is not a continuous process, this is more like mammalian lungs, inhale, absorb oxygen and give of CO2, exhale, repeat. So the same with this thing. And it’s not even the same chamber, apparently. (I suppose the final design could include some bells and whistles so that the desiccant absorbs (or adsorbs, I’m not sure of the desiccant) until sensors say it has hit a limit, valves close and switches close, etc…) Then the wafer is taken from the lung and put into a pressure vessel/condenser, where heat is applied to the wafer (no explanation where this energy comes from, the press release says it can come from the sun, but the video glosses right over that) and the moisture condenses out (the video switches to graphics here, we have no clue if this is a real process or completely CGI). So I can picture constructing the “…engineered matrix…” with an element already in it. Apply power and presto, voilá! the moisture comes out of the wafer and condenses. Here, I see a jug, possibly copper, with a high-emissivity outer coating (flat-black paint) that can radiate to the night sky and cool enough to condense the moisture. But it they’re going to derive ALL the power this sucker needs from just sunlight, now you have a 3-step process, 1) move air over the desiccant and desiccate moisture out of the air 2) move the desiccant to another chamber and heat it to release the moisture 3) remove the wafer, (or keep heating it in place so it doesn’t recombine with the moisture), and cool the chamber ’til the moisture condenses. So an external solar panel to provide electricity to the element, with the condensing chamber in the bottom of a tube so the chamber can radiate to space, while shaded from the sun? Or heat during the day, then remove the desiccant (or isolate it with valves) and condense at night? A very unwieldy process, either way. And I would still want my drinking water filtered, not to mention cooled to below bathwater temperatures. Like I said above, not ready for prime time.
“the device extracted a quarter-liter of water per day per kilogram of the absorbent powder.”
How trite!?
250 grams of water in exchange for 1,000 grams of an unnamed substance…
And those especially dry environments will simply love devices that dry the atmosphere to supply drinking water…
Reminds me of a series of stories; Dune!”
Meanwhile, all of those native creatures that evolved to eke out existence in dry environments will simply need to do better.
Nor have these simpletons discussed what happens to temperatures when atmospheric water content levels are substantially dessicated.
I guess, they have to design more effective CO₂ to make up for water vapor losses.
If they want to keep cost down, and triple the output, run it on electricity. Using solar is a gimmick. It raises cost and severely limits how long it can run each day.
Another one?
Seems like there is a article touting these about twice a year.
Without trying hard I found articles showing machines of this type from 2005 and onward.
True. This very announcement was in April 2017.
How much would it cost to make these devices? Is there any cost analysis? and what is this power? I hope this powder is easy to produce and non toxic…
It’s called a dehumidifier. You can buy them at Walmart.