Nearly all passive water-from-air devices described in articles are based on false claims. Peltier-based, desiccant/absorption/adsorption based, etc. All end up not working, or not existing. This has been common for ~10 years.
Which category does this fall into?:
- Fraud
- Incompetence / misunderstanding that wasn't cleared up prior to publishing an article
- Neither; this works as expected
> Over this period, the device worked across a range of humidities, from 21 to 88 percent, and produced between 57 and 161.5 milliliters of drinking water per day. Even in the driest conditions, the device harvested more water than other passive and some actively powered designs.
so its making a shot of water ever couple days, provided its not too dry?
The team’s new design significantly limits salt leakage. Within the hydrogel itself, they included an extra ingredient: glycerol, a liquid compound that naturally stabilizes salt, keeping it within the gel rather than letting it crystallize and leak out with the water. The hydrogel itself has a microstructure that lacks nanoscale pores, which further prevents salt from escaping the material. The salt levels in the water they collected were below the standard threshold for safe drinking water, and significantly below the levels produced by many other hydrogel-based designs.
So uh, how do they get the salt out of the nanostructure? This design seems amazing but it seems like many of these designs have issues with salts accumulating and clogging up parts thereby requiring some manual maintenance or replacement parts
Most likely not. Hard part really is rejecting the heat involved in phase change of water from vapor to liquid. You have to effectively dump that energy somewhere and all the time you do not you don't get liquid water.'
It sounds easy, but eventually you can heat up whatever you use as heat sink and then you have to wait for that to cool.
Collecting water with tarps is just strategic collection of condensation/dew. Clothing has the issue of often being warmer than ambient because people are warm blooded, so it's unlikely water would condense from the air(though it can condense on the inside from evaporated sweat).
depending on actual conditions you are in, it could potentially double (or more) the time before you die of thirst if it was your only source of water.
I do wonder about the tradeoff between excess perspiration due to wearing heavier materials versus the ability to collect water, especially on the days where replenishing fluids is most crucial.
Assuming it's an "all-weather" jacket I think it would be cool for it to spout out umbrellas when it starts raining, batman style, to catch rain water as well and drop it into pouches. Mp3 player would be great as well.
You can wear silica gel since about 1918 - only needs some heat to get the water out and cold to condense it.
Then again, why would you want to wear your dehumidifier (ok ok water harvester)? Is it for excursions into damp areas, so that you can then return to your dry home to extract water?
Then, I believe everything in this video still applies.
Which category does this fall into?:
https://news.mit.edu/2025/window-sized-device-taps-air-safe-...
So my vote is for working as expected.
so its making a shot of water ever couple days, provided its not too dry?
you need to scale way way up, not down
So uh, how do they get the salt out of the nanostructure? This design seems amazing but it seems like many of these designs have issues with salts accumulating and clogging up parts thereby requiring some manual maintenance or replacement parts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGTRX6pZSns
It sounds easy, but eventually you can heat up whatever you use as heat sink and then you have to wait for that to cool.
https://www.campingsurvival.com/blogs/camping-survival-blogs...
Wouldn't want to be drinking whatever this produces in the GTA though lol
A big step towards a stillsuit anyways ;)
A reductive assessment (to a specific feature) of a novel idea, does not make it less interesting.
Then again, why would you want to wear your dehumidifier (ok ok water harvester)? Is it for excursions into damp areas, so that you can then return to your dry home to extract water?
Then, I believe everything in this video still applies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGTRX6pZSns