New technology to harvest water from the air by using the concept of hydrophobicity

IIT-Guwahati research team uses the concept of hydrophobicity, or the water-repelling nature of some materials, to effectively harvest water from moist air.

Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, claimed to have developed a new technology to harvest water from the air by using the concept of hydrophobicity.

A team, led by Uttam Manna, Associate Professor of Chemistry, along with his research scholars Kousik Maji, Avijit Das and Manideepa Dhar, published the results of the "path-breaking" work in the journal of Royal Society of Chemistry, IIT-Guwahati said in a release. "Such water-harvesting techniques use the concept of hydrophobicity or water-repelling nature of some materials.

The concept of hydrophobicity can be understood by looking at the lotus leaf," Manna said. The research team from IIT-Guwahati has used the concept of chemically patterned SLIPS for the first time, to effectively harvest water from moist air, he added. "A patterned hydrophilic SLIP was produced by spraying a sponge-like porous polymeric material on top of a simple A4 printer paper. Further, chemically modulated hydrophilic spots were associated on the coating, prior to lubricating with two distinct types of oils.

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