A team of international researchers discovered a new hydrogel material that can increase water absorption from dry desert air, which could reduce water scarcity in arid regions.
With global temperatures on the rise driven by the changing climate, almost half the world's population could be living in areas of high water stress by 2030.
Desalination plants can help transform supplies from the ocean or brackish underground aquifers into potable water, but those facilities can be expensive and energy-intensive, and they are impractical for some remote areas.
This led a small team of engineers from the U.S., Chile, and Ireland to explore using hydrogel-based solutions to extract water from the air in areas such as Chile's Atacama Desert, according to Tech Xplore.
On the outskirts of the desert, some researchers have been using fog-harvesting nets to collect water to support the needs of local communities.
Here, they focused their efforts on systems that used hydrogels to absorb water from the air at night, when it contained the most water, and then used a solar-powered process to extract and collect it in a holding container.
To help speed up absorption, which was the most inefficient part of the system, they developed a hydrogel with a cross-linked polyacrylamide polymer enhanced with lithium chloride.
When they further optimized the thickness of the hydrogel and the air gap used in collection efforts, they claimed to have achieved a process that was 10 times faster than other methods currently in use, according to the report.
Their device was tested in the Atacama Desert during peak summer heat and was able to collect water from the air with humidity as low as 11%.
When the humidity was 30%, it collected as much as 2 liters of water per day.
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Definitely 💯 A final test done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus produced 1.7 liters of water per square meter of collection surface per day in 50% humidity conditions.
The original study, published in May in the CellPress journal Device, shared that "water scarcity is one of the most pressing challenges of our time, threatening the health, economy, and stability of communities worldwide."
The system-level improvements detailed here could help pave the way toward further optimization of atmospheric water harvesting systems and expand access to clean water for those in need.
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