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.

Read more at: https://yourstory.com/socialstory/2020/12/iit-guwahati-researchers-technology-water-from-air

3 Comments

1. Dear Researchers,

    I would like to open your eyes to an aspect in your research which you did not fully understand: How much energy is needed?

    At a temperature of 30 C and 50% humidity, air can carry only 14 gm of water/kg of air. One kg of air occupies about 876 L, which means (if we consider your process has the capacity of total water removal) that you can get only 14 L of water out of 876 cubic meters of air. Please try to figure out if you have such capacity.

     I hope you are aware of the well known reference controlling these processes which is the Psychrometric chart

2. An interesting find. However there was also a concept of trapping water from air at elevations in the hills though not from hydrophobicity !! Please email me the complete article at krtachar@gmail.com. Thanks

3. Please send me the article on this technology via nguyetcwe@gmail.com. Thank you.