Photo: Jonathan Wood/Getty Images
Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States developed an innovative, low-cost, superabsorbent material capable of absorbing “record” amounts of water from desert air.
According to the institution, it is an innovative transparent bubble-shaped hydrogel that possesses highly absorbent properties in order to extract vapor from air in very arid conditions, Placing it as an advance with the potential to mitigate water supply problems in the most arid areas of our planet.
This salty gel could harvest water from desert air: A new material developed by MIT engineers exhibits “record-breaking” vapor absorption. https://t.co/MiGKqnMPFK pic.twitter.com/91KaenBwMV
— Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (@MIT) June 15, 2023
The compound can absorb and retain an unprecedented amount of moisture, up to 1.79 grams of water per gram of material. Even in very dry conditions, with 30% relative humidity, the material would manage to absorb vapor from the air since it has the ability to swell to expand its capacity, a property that was improved after infusing it with lithium chloride, a type of salt capable of absorbing more than 10 times its own mass in moisture.
According to Carlos Díaz-Marín, co-author of the publication, “any desert at night would have that low relative humidity, so it is plausible that the material could generate water in the desert.”
Superabsorbent gel applications
A next step would be to promote its manufacture until the hydrogel serves as a passive water collector in desert and drought-prone regions.where the material would act by absorbing the low humidity from the air continuously, to later be condensed in drinking water.
A second use, the authors point out, could well be in the home appliance industry, specifically in air conditioning systems, since it can be considered as a dehumidifying element with low energy consumption.
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