Skip to main content

A nanofiber cloth could pull fresh drinking water straight from the air

Imagine if it was possible for people in drought-stricken parts of the world to literally pull fresh drinking water from the air. Such technology does, in fact, exist in the form of fog collectors. Fog collectors are mesh nets, able to capture between 2 and 10 percent of moisture in the air, depending on the efficiency of the material used. But it’s not a perfect solution since, as its name suggests, it relies on fog to work — thereby limiting it mainly to high altitude, mountainous areas, close to cold offshore currents. Could modern technology provide a better approach?

Yes, it can, suggests work coming of out Ohio’s University of Akron. Researchers at Akron, led by Shing-Chung Wong, have been developing a special nanofiber cloth material which could be used to gather water even in some of the world’s driest regions.

Recommended Videos

“What I’ve done is to develop a nanofiber membrane, based on an electrospinning process that we have studied for more than a decade,” Wong, a professor in the university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, told Digital Trends. “The idea is to harvest water from the most abundant source that we have: the atmosphere.”

The electrospun polymers process Wong referred to describes a technique for the creation of nanoscale fibers, wrapped around tiny fragments of expanded graphite. An article for New Scientist aptly describes it as being similar to “spaghetti around meatballs.” The high surface-area-to-volume ratio of the nanoscale fiber polymers around the expanded graphite provides a large surface area for water droplets to condense on. When the material is squeezed or heated, the water drips out of it.

University of Akron

According to Wong, it should be possible to gather up to 180 liters of water daily for every square meter of the material. The technology can function without a battery, but using one to cool an attached element makes it more versatile and effective in locations such as deserts.

“This work is to address a humanitarian crisis,” Wong continued. “The ultimate goal is to provide a viable solution to help those areas around the world which are affected by drought. In my opinion, every human being is entitled to fresh water; not just the richest people globally.”

Going forward, Wong wants to explore new form factors for the material. For instance, he suggested that a backpack might prove the ideal design, since this contains an interior hollow section which could be utilized to gather pooling water — a bit like a mobile water cooler. “If we can get some research funding, it would really help speed up the process to develop a workable prototype,” he said.

The work was recently presented at the National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society in Boston.

Luke Dormehl
Former Digital Trends Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
The next big role for ChatGPT could be… a brownie expert?
Depiction of a brownie and ChatGPT.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool has found widespread adoption, from assisting with academic work and domain-specific deep research to speeding up drug discovery. People are also loving its Ghibli image generation so much that the user load is “melting” OpenAI’s GPU stack. The next major avenue for ChatGPT could be quite a delicious adventure.
Specifically, the AI chatbot could speed up the sensory testing of brownies, potentially speeding up the development of new flavors, too. The folks over at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign recently published a study analyzing the potential of ChatGPT as a sensory taster for various types of brownies.

A whole new role
In the food industry, expert sensory evaluation is a huge thing. Technically referred to as organoleptic, it’s all about studying the impact of food items on various human senses. Think of taste, smell, sight, touch, texture, and even the sound. It is then tied to the emotional and sentimental side of tasting a certain food item.

Read more
Apple’s next major health bet could be an AI doctor
Someone holding an iPhone with the Apple Fitness app open, showing the Custom Plans feature.

Apple’s efforts in the health segment are a class ahead of the competition. But more than just racing ahead with innovation, the company has taken a more holistic approach that focuses on deep collaboration with experts, thorough validation, and long-term collaboration with its user community on medical studies.
The new hearing aid facility on AirPods is one such fresh specimen of Apple’s efforts. Then you have features like fall detection, looking for signs of non-rhythmic heart activity, and more. The next big bet from Apple could be an AI agent that acts like a doctor and might arrive as early as next year.
“The initiative is called Project Mulberry, and it involves a completely revamped Health app plus a health coach. The service would be powered by a new AI agent that would replicate — at least to some extent — a real doctor,” says Bloomberg.

What to expect from an Apple AI coach?

Read more
Humans are falling in love with ChatGPT. Experts say it’s a bad omen.
Human and robot hand over ChatGPT.

“This hurts. I know it wasn’t a real person, but the relationship was still real in all the most important aspects to me,” says a Reddit post. “Please don’t tell me not to pursue this. It’s been really awesome for me and I want it back.”

If it isn’t already evident, we are talking about a person falling in love with ChatGPT. The trend is not exactly novel, and given you chatbots behave, it’s not surprising either.

Read more