This Gadget Uses the Sun to Pull Water Out of Thin Air

The device can generate multiple quarts of water per day, and could help remote areas without access to clean water.

MIT / Laboratory of Evelyn Wang

A team of researchers at MIT and the University of California, Berkeley have developed a device that uses the power of the sun to extract water from the air. Their device works at low power and in arid conditions, which means it could help remote desert communities without constant access to fresh water.

Fundamentally, the new device does the same thing as a dehumidifier: it turns excess water vapor in the air into liquid water. But where a dehumidifier uses lots of electricity, the researchers' water harvester uses only heat from the sun and a special material called an MOF.

MOF stands for Metal-Organic Framework. An MOF is a lattice of organic molecules interspersed with metals like magnesium or aluminum. The MOF used in the scientists' water harvester is made of zirconium and adipic acid.

MOFs act as molecular sponges, capturing and storing specific particles of liquid or gas. The zirconium/adipic acid MOF is well-suited to capturing water molecules in the air, and the researchers combined it with a water storage system to create their device.

The device works without any electricity or disposable materials. Air passes through the MOF, which captures particles of water vapor. Sunlight heats the device, which causes the water to condense into a tank. With this process, over a quart of water can be produced per day per pound of MOF material, even in arid conditions with only 20 percent humidity.

This is already enough to keep a person from dehydration, but the researchers stress that this is only a prototype and there is more room for improvement. Future versions of the water harvester could use better MOF materials that can collect more water, or the design could be improved to maximize efficiency.

In the future, such devices could be given to remote communities without easy access to water. A larger, more efficient version of the water harvester could easily produce multiple gallons of water per day, enough to support a large family. This could potentially provide a large impact in regions where water is otherwise scarce.


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