Water harvesting from air with metal-organic frameworks powered by natural sunlight
Hyunho Kim1, Sungwoo Yang1, Sameer R. Rao1, Shankar Narayanan1,*, Eugene A. Kapustin2,3, Hiroyasu Furukawa2,3, Ari S. Umans1, Omar M. Yaghi2,3,4,†, Evelyn N. Wang1,†
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Science 28 Apr 2017:
Vol. 356, Issue 6336, pp. 430-434
DOI: 10.1126/science.aam8743
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Solar heat helps harvest humidity
Atmospheric humidity and droplets constitute a huge freshwater resource, especially at the low relative humidity (RH) levels typical of arid environments. Water can be adsorbed by microporous materials such as zeolites, but often, making these materials release the water requires too much energy to be practical. Kim et al. used a metal-organic framework (MOF) material that has a steep increase in water uptake over a narrow RH range to harvest water, using only ambient sunlight to heat the material. They obtained 2.8 liters of water per kilogram of MOF daily at 20% RH.
Science, this issue p. 430
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6336/430
