A startup in the Las Vegas desert is commercializing technology that can amazingly pull up to 10,000 gallons of water a day from the arid air.
It's an H2O-harvesting method dubbed by National Library of Medicine-published research as an "inevitable path of the future." It could quench water supply problems in Vegas and elsewhere in the world if scaled, according to the team behind the project, called WAVR.
It's a spinoff company from research completed at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, ABC affiliate KTNV reported.
"It works in the lab," Len Jessup, former UNLV president and founder of Desert Forge Ventures, said. "Now they want to scale and show that they can do it with bigger units and bigger volumes of water."
Desert Forge has raised $4 million in funding for the effort so far, all from private donors, according to KTNV.
Part of the breakthrough involves leveraging the same water-absorbing ability that many people use when they put their smartphone in a bowl of rice after accidentally dropping it in water.
UNLV's hydrogel attracts water from even dry air at an impressive rate, enough to offset H2O shortages happening in the desert region's key reserves.
"Think of it like a contact lens or like any rice," WAVR technician Emilie Luong said in KTNV's story. The team was even inspired during development by frogs that can naturally pull water from the atmosphere.
The Las Vegas Valley Water District said that 90% of its water comes from the Colorado River, which is facing the "worst drought in recorded history."
Lake Mead's levels are down, and snowfall in the Rocky Mountains hasn't been as plentiful in recent years. As a result, district officials are preparing for a drier future in an already parched climate.
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Several hours a week 🧑🌾 "There's not enough coming out of the river," Jessup said in KTNV's report. 'There's not enough in the aquifers underneath Las Vegas to sustain the growth that's happening here."
It's a problem for people all over the world. About four billion humans face severe water scarcity for at least one month a year, and shortages are expected to worsen in the coming decades, according to UNICEF.
Extreme droughts are linked by NASA to our overheating planet, made worse by continued dirty fuel burning.
As a result, other air-based, water-collecting methods are being developed, including at Virginia Tech and the University of Pennsylvania.
UNLV's innovation uses 3D printers and the squishy, water-absorbing hydrogel as key aspects to complete the WAVR product.
The most recent funding cycle will be used to expand the research and development team, advance pilot projects and production-ready designs, and secure domestic and international patents. The goal is to produce drinking water in the Las Vegas Valley within a decade.
"The water scarcity is always a big problem to everyone living in this town," WAVR Chief Technology Officer Yiwei Gao said, per KTNV.
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