Masdar Nanotech Promises to Bring on the Rain

Rainfall  enhancement via cloud seeding can potentially increase precipitation by 10% to 30%, helping to refresh groundwater reserves and boost agricultural production.

Researchers at the Masdar Institute have filed for a provisional patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for their discovery – and innovative cloud seeding material that moves them closer to their goal of producing rain on demand. 

Dr. Linda Zou is leading the project. A professor of chemical and environmental engineering, she is one of the first scientists to explore nanotechnology to enhance a cloud seeding material’s ability to produce rain. By filing a patent, the team is paving a way to commercialize their discovery, and aligning with Masdar Institute’s aim to position the UAE as a world leader in science and tech, specifically in the realm of environmental sustainability.

It is a significant step towards achieving greater water security in the UAE. Rainfall enhancement via cloud seeding can potentially increase precipitation by 10% to 30%, helping to refresh groundwater reserves, boost agricultural production, and reduce the country’s heavy reliance on water produced by energy-intensive seawater desalination.

“Using nanotechnology to accelerate water droplet formation on a typical cloud seeding material has never been researched before. It is a new approach that could revolutionize the development of cloud seeding materials and make them significantly more efficient and effective,” said Dr. Zou.

Rain enhancement leverages cloud physics, atmosphere physics, and topographical studies to stimulate clouds to produce rain. Zou and her team complement such work through their focus on the cloud seeding material itself.

Conventional cloud seeding materials are tiny particles such as salt crystals, dry ice and silver iodide. A few microns (one-thousandth of a millimeter) in size, these act as the core around which cloud water condenses, stimulating water droplet growth.

Once the air in the cloud reaches a certain level of saturation, it can no longer hold in that moisture, and rain falls. Cloud seeding essentially mimics what naturally occurs in clouds, but enhances the process by adding particles that can stimulate and accelerate the condensation process.

According to a Masdar Institute press release, Dr. Zou and her collaborators, Dr. Mustapha Jouiad, Principal Research Scientist in Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department, postdoctoral researcher Dr. Nabil El Hadri and PhD student Haoran Liang, explored ways to improve the process of condensation on a pure salt crystal by layering it with a thin coating of titanium dioxide.

The coating measures around 50 nanometers, more than one thousand times thinner than a human hair. Miniscule in size, the coating has a massive effect on the salt’s condensation efficiency. Titanium dioxide is a hydrophilic photocatalyst, which means that when in contact with water vapor in the cloud, it helps to initiate and sustain the water vapor condensation on the nanoparticle’s surface, accelerating formation of large water droplets – hence, rain.

Read more: Green Prophet

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Taxonomy

• Rainwater Harvesting
• Nanotechnology
• Integrated Urban Water Management
• Stormwater Management
• Stormwater
• Urban Water
• Urban Resource Management
• Urban Water Supply
• Storm Water Management
• Urban Water Infrastructure
• Urban Design