The facing air of death in death can be a precious source of water

A small panel managed to take a glass of clean TERS From the air dry air in the Death Valley in California, suggesting that the device can provide an important resource in the arihong region.

Atmosphere on the most dry ground can give a lot of water, but get it in important amounts of powerless. Previously, researchers had many ways to tap this reservoir, such as Nets to fog made from simple mesh fabrics or spider silk Artificial fibersBut they struggle to make them effective working conditions in the world.

Now, Xuanhe Zhao In the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues develop a power-free water collection device of about 0.5 meters long and 0.1 m across. It is made up of a glass panel with a absorbed hydrogel, a jelly-like substance made from long-chain polyper.

Hydrogel, folded by a structure like Origami to increase its place, absorb water at night. It then flies when the sun shines the glass panel in the sun. The interior of the device is coated with a special cooling material, which evaporated water collects and drops in storage below.

Zhao and his team tried their device a week in Death Valley, where humidity can reach as 5 per cent. For comparison, Average year in London about 70 percent. Researchers know that the device obtained up to 160 water millers each day, enough to fill a small glass.

They estimate that eight of these panels can provide a common consumption requirements of daily drinking water, which can be more useful in areas of areas. “Because the design of this device is a compact structure, we believe that a larger device can give water to drink for a daily consumption,” Zhao said.

Zhao and his team well indicated that the device works in the real world, as Daryl Williams In imperial College London, but there are problems when it is tried longer than a week. “Lighting out is a bit shut. We want to know how the device works under stress, after three, six, nine months.”