{"id":18980,"date":"2017-04-19T14:36:39","date_gmt":"2017-04-19T18:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=18980"},"modified":"2021-05-22T16:26:56","modified_gmt":"2021-05-22T20:26:56","slug":"new-device-from-mit-and-uc-berkeley-pulls-water-from-dry-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/new-device-from-mit-and-uc-berkeley-pulls-water-from-dry-air\/","title":{"rendered":"New Device From MIT and UC Berkeley Pulls Water From Dry Air"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just a week ago, I\u00a0<a title=\"wrote\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/universities-help-to-alleviate-water-crisis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wrote<\/a>\u00a0about the dire need for safe water around the world and the role of universities in this fight. I&#8217;m happy to report that two universities have come up with yet another invention that will help alleviate the water crisis.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The device, which extracts water from dry air, is the brainchild of <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/yaghi.berkeley.edu\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Omar Yaghi<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, professor of chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, and <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/meche.mit.edu\/people\/faculty\/enwang@mit.edu\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Evelyn Wang<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All you need to power the device is sunlight, so it will be particularly useful in poor and remote areas that lack access to safe water. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The device would also come in handy in places with hot arid climate, such as Arizona and Texas. The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/water-crisis\/water-in-crisis-middle-east\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Middle East<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which is struggling with its current water resources, would also certainly benefit from it. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><b>How does the device work?<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n<p><iframe title=\"Pulling drinkable water out of dry air\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dvwmZKqPgKQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The device uses metal-organic frameworks (MOF) <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/news.berkeley.edu\/2017\/04\/13\/device-pulls-water-from-dry-air-powered-only-by-the-sun\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">invented by Yaghi<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> two decades ago. \u00a0MOFs connect metals, such as magnesium or aluminum, and organic molecules in rigid, porous structures that can hold storing gases and liquids.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_18984\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18984\" style=\"width: 439px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-18984 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/UC-Berkeley-MOF.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"439\" height=\"297\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18984\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">UC Berkeley, Berkeley Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Different metals can be combined with different organic compounds to create MOFs that would serve different needs. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since Yaghi\u2019s invention, researchers around the world have created different MOFs to store chemicals, such as hydrogen and methane, and petrochemicals in processing plants. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2014, Yaghi and his lab team developed a MOF using zirconium metal and adipic acid, which binds water vapor. Yaghi then approached Wang with a proposal that they work together to create a water-collecting system using the MOF.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wang and her lab team designed a prototype system that compressed about two pounds of dust-sized MOF crystals between a solar absorber and a condenser plate, which was then placed inside an open chamber. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The MOF absorbs water molecules from the air, which turns into vapor during the day when sunlight heats it. The vapor escapes the MOF, and is channelled into an adjacent acrylic vessel where a condenser collects the water droplets and directs them into a collector<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_18986\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18986\" style=\"width: 638px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18986\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/device.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"638\" height=\"430\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18986\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hyunho Kim, MIT<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><b>The first of its kind<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The system is the first technology with a practical solution for extracting water from dry air, <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/news.mit.edu\/2017\/MOF-device-harvests-fresh-water-from-air-0414\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">according to Wang<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The new technology is not limited by the constraints of fog harvesting, which requires a relative humidity of 100 percent, or dew harvesting, which is \u201cextremely energy intensive.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Until now, \u201cthere really hasn\u2019t been a technology available that could fill\u201d the desperate need for potable water in \u201cdesert areas around the world with around 20 percent humidity,\u201d Wang said in a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MIT tests show that 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of MOF could collect about 2.8 liters (three quarts) of fresh water per day from very dry air with a humidity of just 20 percent. That is more than enough <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mayoclinic.org\/healthy-lifestyle\/nutrition-and-healthy-eating\/in-depth\/water\/art-20044256\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">drinking water for one person<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in a day.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><b>Improvements to come<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MIT\u2019s rooftop experiments have proved that the system can work in the real world, but the team is still working to improve the design and functionality. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cTo have water running all the time, you could design a system that absorbs the humidity during the night and evolves it during the day,\u201d Yaghi said in a statement. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOr design the solar collector to allow for this at a much faster rate, where more air is pushed in. We wanted to demonstrate that if you are cut off somewhere in the desert, you could survive because of this device. A person needs about a Coke can of water per day. That is something one could collect in less than an hour with this system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-18974\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MIT-Water-Tech.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"830\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But TUN was assured that a viable product would come soon. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe could realize this device in the next 2-3 years,\u201d Wang said in an email.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wang also told TUN how she feels about the potential of the technology.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I am excited that with this device, we can help provide clean drinking water for people in remote areas with very limited infrastructure.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just a week ago, I\u00a0wrote\u00a0about the dire need for safe water around the world and the role of universities in this fight. I&#8217;m happy to report that two universities have come up with yet another invention that will help alleviate the water crisis. The device, which extracts water from dry air, is the brainchild of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":18983,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[231,648,233,232,376,230,229,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-news","category-clean-water","category-sustainable","category-technology","category-massachusetts-institute-of-technology","category-news","category-lead-stories","category-university-of-california-berkeley"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Water-from-Dry-Air.jpeg",830,552,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Water-from-Dry-Air-217x144.jpeg",217,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Water-from-Dry-Air-300x200.jpeg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Water-from-Dry-Air.jpeg",830,552,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Water-from-Dry-Air.jpeg",830,552,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Water-from-Dry-Air.jpeg",830,552,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Water-from-Dry-Air.jpeg",830,552,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Susan Chu","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/susan-chu\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Just a week ago, I\u00a0wrote\u00a0about the dire need for safe water around the world and the role of universities in this fight. I&#8217;m happy to report that two universities have come up with yet another invention that will help alleviate the water crisis. The device, which extracts water from dry air, is the brainchild of&hellip;","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Water-from-Dry-Air.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}