New Solar-Powered Device Can Pull Water Straight From the Desert Air (sciencemag.org) 202
sciencehabit quotes a report from Science Magazine: You can't squeeze blood from a stone, but wringing water from the desert sky is now possible, thanks to a new spongelike device that uses sunlight to suck water vapor from air, even in low humidity. The device can produce nearly 3 liters of water per day, and researchers say future versions will be even better. That means homes in the driest parts of the world could soon have a solar-powered appliance capable of delivering all the water they need, offering relief to billions of people. To find an all-purpose solution, researchers led by Omar Yaghi, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, turned to a family of crystalline powders called metal organic frameworks, or MOFs. Yaghi developed the first MOFs -- porous crystals that form continuous 3D networks -- more than 20 years ago. The networks assemble in a Tinkertoy-like fashion from metal atoms that act as the hubs and sticklike organic compounds that link the hubs together. By choosing different metals and organics, chemists can dial in the properties of each MOF, controlling what gases bind to them, and how strongly they hold on. The system Wang and her students designed consists of a kilogram of dust-sized MOF crystals pressed into a thin sheet of porous copper metal. That sheet is placed between a solar absorber and a condenser plate and positioned inside a chamber. At night the chamber is opened, allowing ambient air to diffuse through the porous MOF and water molecules to stick to its interior surfaces, gathering in groups of eight to form tiny cubic droplets. In the morning, the chamber is closed, and sunlight entering through a window on top of the device then heats up the MOF, which liberates the water droplets and drives them -- as vapor -- toward the cooler condenser. The temperature difference, as well as the high humidity inside the chamber, causes the vapor to condense as liquid water, which drips into a collector. The findings were published in the journal Science.
Can we use this device on Arrakis? (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds a bit like a windtrap. Can sietchs and spice-harvesting be far off?
Re:Can we use this device on Arrakis? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Can we use this device on Arrakis? (Score:4, Insightful)
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you clearly missed the Butlerian jihad history class.
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Said no one actually living in the Middle East in 2017.
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>> Imperial stormtroopers won't kill your family
Said no one actually living in the Middle East in 2017.
True enough, I guess. So, +1 Informative, -1 Whoosh?
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The worry to me is that this will attract sand worms.
Re: Can we use this device on Arrakis? (Score:4, Funny)
If you walk without rhythm, you won't attract the worm.
White privilege!
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LOL
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The flesh surrenders itself, he thought. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not . . . yet, I occurred.
Paul Muad'Dib Atreides
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well... as long as the sleeper can stay asleep.
Some other projects (Score:5, Interesting)
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A few questions (Score:2)
I gave TFA a cursory glance only, so sorry if ghis has been answered.
How large is this thing?
And I assume the water it produces is akin to distilled water. Isn't that bad to drink?
Re: A few questions (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes no, it is bad if you dont have a source of salts.
Thats why the sami here drinks coffe with salt in it. When they are going in the moantins and only get water from snow you ad salt the same applies here
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When they are going in the moantins and only get water from snow you ad salt the same applies here
That's why you should only eat the yellow snow.
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"I dreamed I was an Eskimo..."
Re: A few questions (Score:3)
It's a prototype and TFA says it only has 1kg of material so it would be fairly small. This thing is producing a lot of water for 1kg.
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It's a prototype and TFA says it only has 1kg of material so it would be fairly small. This thing is producing a lot of water for 1kg.
It also say 'spread in to a thin sheet'. So it would be huge. And why do you consider it a 'lot of water' for 1kg?
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Re:A few questions (Score:5, Interesting)
> I assume the water it produces is akin to distilled water. Isn't that bad to drink?
Yes. A lot of the human digestive tract works by osmosis. Putting distilled water through it means it's going to reverse, and rather than your body absorbing a lot of important things, it's going to be dumping them - presumably into your stool.
I don't imagine hardening water to healthy levels will be all that difficult... the question is, can you make it inexpensive, robust, and foolproof enough for the type of applications this device (if it works and is practical) would see.
Continual consumption of distilled water is bad for your heart, nervous system, and immune system - but it takes fair while, and there are other ways to get minerals and other things you might normally get from water... mainly *eating* them. Still, it would be an additional concern that you otherwise wouldn't even have to think about.
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I remember reading about how the Sauds and other countries in that region take relatively deionized water that was distilled or from their desalination plants, and add the needed trace amounts of minerals fo it, so it would be suitable and healthy for drinking.
If distilled water becomes common, I can see a company like Nuun making fizzy tablets which dissolve in water to give the needed minerals, and perhaps some useful vitamins as well.
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Well, if you only drink gatorade you made from it, it should be fine... well except for the calcium. I heard distilled water can be hard on your teeth for lack of it.
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Aquifers under deserts tend to have rather saline groundwater, to the point the issue is often reducing the salt content enough to be potable. A supply of distilled water would be quite easy to handle; you just blend it with the water you're already drawing from wells.
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shipping salt tablets (or whatever) is vastly easier than shipping water.
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Re: A few questions (Score:4, Informative)
From the first Google search result: "The relative humidity in the Sahara Desert is 25%"
Along with this result: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-vapor-air-d_854.html - suggests that there is actually MORE TOTAL WATER in the air over the Sahara Desert than there is in the air in most of the continental US at any time of the year.
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The TFA says it works in low humidity, such as that found in arid regions.
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Seeing is believing (Score:5, Insightful)
There have been a few, let's say, shady promises about extracting water from air, mostly coupled with crowdfunding campaigns (gee, why could that be?). Those that actually delivered a product were mostly ridiculous, provided you were not one of those duped into backing it. Then it was more a reason for anger and disappointment.
Most actually never delivered. Which reminds me, wasn't Fontus [fontus.at] due to deliver right now in April? Any backers here, did they actually deliver? Because, let's put it careful, I'd really, really love to see that!
So don't get me wrong when I don't hold my breath. I have been promised easy water from thin air before. And what has been delivered so far, if anything, was ridiculous. Either it didn't work, didn't scale past proof-of-concept scale or only worked if the humidity was high enough that rain was more the rule than the exception, rendering a system that extracts water from the air redundant: A bucket would do.
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The crowdfunded examples all had glaring issues that they needed to break the laws of physics to work as stated, had no working prototype, and made excessive claims
This has the advantage of not breaking any laws of physics, having a working prototype, and making claims that are reasonable
3 liters of water in 12 hours is not excessive for either humid air or a lot of energy, all they have done is use a new (but already tried method) of doing this, the airflow is low, and the energy usage looks reasonable
It i
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Let's put it that way: I know how much water my air condition condenses in 12 hours. Yes, 2-3 liters in half a day is very possible. In a sweltering atmosphere with a humidity that reaches the 80% easily, 100F and an air condition with 8000 btu.
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IT can, and quite easily. 1000 watts of solar is not that hard to achieve
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" 1000 watts of solar is not that hard to achieve"
neither is 10,000. You just need a lot of surface area.
1000 is about 5.5 square meters -- and that will produce about enough water for 1 person per day -- to drink -- never mind tending to food (livestock or crops). Unless we're planning on building a subterranean society of Morlocks living under miles of solar panels I don't think we're at the point where this is practical for anything more than off-grid outback living or helping out small communities of
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Let's get that Tansley Effect going.
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It could, technically. The solar panels to do so would probably black out the Sahara, but technically...
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Not really a window airconditioner running on a 15 amp(generally 12 amp) and 120 volts has a max 1200watt draw.
1000w of solar panels is roughly the same size as a typical mid sized window in a home. so 1x2 meters or 3x 6 foot.
5000w can power something like 60-90% of a given home depending on if it is gas or electric heat gas or electric hot water and size of air conditioner. That is why solar panels are popping up around the world on houses. for $20-$30k you can get basically free electricity. at $100 a
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Where you live is a lot different to here. Generally, we expect a house to average 4kW (over 24 hours) with no A/C. 5kW will probably only power one A/C in addition to routine loads, and a very small house has a 15kW gas boiler round here.
Electric heating costs 5 * the price of gas here. Even using an A/C in heating mode will cost you twice
Re:Seeing is believing (Score:4, Informative)
Im averaging 14kw per day from a 2kw system with micro inverters. Thats averaging around 1kw. Your system must suck bad.
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for $20-$30k you can get basically free electricity. >
Whoodathunkit!
Re:Seeing is believing (Score:5, Informative)
If solar panel lifetime is shorter than 15-20 years like you say, why do solar manufacturers offer warrantees for 25 years or more? For example, here is LG's warranty page [lg-solar.com] for their solar panels, they guarantee that their panels will produce at least 80.2% of their rated output at the end of the 25th year. Panel lifetimes are certainly better than the "few years" that you claim.
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Whether it's worthwhile seems to come down to something like how many square meters of collector does it take to create 300 liters of water per day and is it all done with just solar power or does it require extra inputs and how much does it cost.
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Re: Seeing is believing (Score:2)
I have no idea where you're getting 300L a day. A human only needs around 1l of water a day to survive.
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A human only needs around 1l of water a day to survive.
In the desert ?
Human water needs (Score:5, Informative)
A human only needs around 1l of water a day to survive.
You will respirate and pee away well more than 1 liter [quora.com] per day under normal circumstances even if you aren't in a desert and are doing nothing active. Water requirements can easily exceed that substantially if you are sweating significantly or if it is very hot.
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Rich people have the weirdest fetishes...
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A liter a day is your "invisible" water loss, due to respiration and perspiration. If it's not too hot and you're sweating like a pig.
Urine accounts for 1.5 - 2.5 liters a day, depending on circumstances. If you're dehydrated and your body notices it should be conserving fluids, you're closer to 1.5, but that's not good for your kidneys if carried on for too long.
So we're closer to 2-3 liters a day that you need to survive. And your didn't brush your teeth, wash yourself or cook food yet.
Need 3L not 1L ... (Score:2)
I have no idea where you're getting 300L a day. A human only needs around 1l of water a day to survive.
No, active adults need about 3L not 1L. So with this device producing about 2.8L it could sustain a single person. Things get complicated with activity levels and climate, and water in food counts towards the total.
The 1L per day figure is life raft level rationing where you are sedentary and either rescued from the sea in a few days or likely to die so additional water is unlikely to change the outcome.
300L is total western water usage (Score:2)
I have no idea where you're getting 300L a day. A human only needs around 1l of water a day to survive.
It sounds like total water usage in the west once you consider showers, toilets, cooking, cleaning, etc.
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average water usage in the usa is 525L
Water usage for several european countries and mexico are over 300L per day by the same measure.
This sounds crazy high since my water usage is under 1000G per month or under 126 liters per day. I don't know how much under because that's the minimum bill.
http://www.data360.org/dsg.asp... [data360.org]
A huge factor would be more lawns in the U.S. since we still have low population density. If our population was as dense as europe, then our water usage per citizen would be way lower b
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Does that include agricultural and industrial water use?
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1l a day to survive if you're sitting around in a nice cool environment and not doing much exercise. A lot more than that in the desert and/or if you do any kind of physical labor.
In the prepper community, the general rule of thumb is to store 5 gallons of water per person per day. That's the bare minimum for drinking needs + food preparation + some (very) basic personal hygiene.
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There have been a few, let's say, shady promises about extracting water from air, mostly coupled with crowdfunding campaigns (gee, why could that be?).
And how. Crowdfunding is a great way to grab some money from the Youtube perpetual motion gang.
The thing that is odd is that this paltry 3 liters of water with it's expensive collection materials pales in comparison with this system that will extract 42 liters per day, http://www.treehugger.com/clea... [treehugger.com] , uses wind power, and only costs 134 dollars.
These people are pikers compared to the manufacturer of that fine bit of kit.
But there are those nasty thermodynamic laws and the enthalpy of vaporizat
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Since I don't know just how good the lawyers of those Vaporware producers are, I will refrain from commenting on the veracity of that claim. I will point out, though, that with a relative humidity of 100% at 25C you can squeeze 0.01ml of water from a liter of air. Or 0.00001 liters per liter of air. So it's easy to see that you'd have to move and FULL dehumidify (which is impossible, but let's fake it, I mean, if they can, why shouldn't we...) over 4 MILLION liters of air for those 42 liters of water. And w
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OMG did you even read the comments in the article YOU posted?
Yes I did. I find it hard to imagine that you read my post. Windseer is a scam. This device very likely is as well. At their very best, they are misguided
There are energy issues involved with trying to pull water out of dry air. A dehumidifier or air conditioner use a lot of energy. A lot of people don't understand that, and are easy marks for scammers.
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I suppose the difference is that those other products were designed by artists, and this one is developed by scientists.
The artists have no idea about the technical details of how it supposed to work, and try to hire some engineers to do the actual development. When the numbers don't work out, then they go into full bullshit mode, crafting stories to their backers about supplier difficulties or whatnot.
The scientists are already developing the device and have some prototypes that do things. The claims are l
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Who said it has to be portable?
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Cost per unit of water? (Score:3)
What is the cost per unit of water generated? It doesn't matter if it works if it is prohibitively expensive per unit of water generated. If the economics of it don't make sense it will never be used at scale.
Solar Powered Refrigerator (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Solar Powered Refrigerator (Score:5, Interesting)
They are doing some sort of magic with exotic materials that concentrate water vapor in the air prior to the condensation.
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Cause, that takes power... This is solar powered, which is not providing power at night.... Of course, you could add batteries...
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Vapor-ware (Score:5, Funny)
...that really is VAPOR ware. ;)
Where was this tested? (Score:2)
Where did they test this thing and what was the relative humidity during the test? 3 liters isn't enough for one person to survive on in the desert (1 gallon per person per day) so you'd really need a lot of them for normal daily use and a lot more to be able to grow crops.
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So what can you use this water for? (Score:2)
I mean if drinking distilled water is bad for you, long term, without adding the minerals that your body needs, that's not really a good solution. Plus, I expect this water is going to be pretty hot since it's sitting in the desert sun, so that the solar panels can power it, so... Maybe the real application for this is that they have a really fancy way to boil a pot of water to cook their noodles? I didn't really think that my 10 cent pack of ramen needed a more cost effective cooking mechanism, but if they
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I mean if drinking distilled water is bad for you, long term, without adding the minerals that your body needs, that's not really a good solution
There are minerals in the food.
Thunderf00t does the math on this (Score:3, Informative)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Not one person... (Score:2)
has typed the words "moisture vaporators" prior to this?
Damn, has this place gone downhill.
I already have one (Score:2)
New Solar-Powered Device Can Pull Water Straight From the Desert Air
Yeah, it's called a sheet of plastic [wikihow.com].
Realism (Score:2)
This will have a major impact on the globe (Score:2)
if implemented widescale, it will screw up weather patterns globally. there's a finite amount of water on the earth.
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Where do you suppose it goes after we drink it?
Water from air? (Score:2)
But . . . people fart in it.
It's not 3 liters... (Score:2)
It should be 30 deciliters. C'mon, get the units right. It's a windtrap.
--Shai-Hulud
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Whoops, I have to turn in my sci-fi geek card. That should be 0.3 decaliters/day.
It will still take quite a while to collect millions of them. But when we have enough...
Yes billions (Score:5, Informative)
Who on earth is so stupid to believe that "a billion" people live in "deserts"?
How about the United Nations [un.org]? Strictly speaking it isn't all desert but apparently well north of a billion people live in water stressed parts of the world or areas threatened by desertification.
Nevertheless a device like this might be useful in all warm/humid areas.
Maybe. The real question is how much does it cost per unit of water generated. To be useful it would have to generate a rather sizeable amount of water even to just cover drinking and basic cleaning needs.
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Removing humidity from the air might even enhance that.
Nearly all that water will go back to the air in the next day as you sweat/pee it back out, so it wouldn't matter.
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I doubt it's quite that simple.. If they're using a sewage system, the water will be effectively 'gone' in a pit or tank. (Sure, it'll get back 'eventually', but that might take decades.) Agree with the previous post that drawing even more moisture from a dry zone may have unknown consequences and ought to be studied before technology like this is deployed.
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The water that went into the pit or tank decades ago is coming out tomorrow too. And the atmosphere is constantly in motion. The air mass that's over a desert today will be over the ocean next week, and the other way around.
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Maybe. The real question is how much does it cost per unit of water generated. To be useful it would have to generate a rather sizeable amount of water even to just cover drinking and basic cleaning needs.
Well, here's the instructions to synthesize MOF-801-P [acs.org] and it doesn't look super complicated. The solar input is used both for heat (to desorb the water in the MOF) and electricity (to condense the vapor), so it probably doesn't need to be a super-high-efficiency panel. The MOF contains zirconium, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, so it's not like we're dealing with platinum or rare earth elements... so, I dunno. I suspect the system wouldn't be outrageously expensive when produced at volume.
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The s indicates plural, that means more than one billion ... actually minimum two.
Who on earth is so stupid to believe that "a billion" people live in "deserts"?
Hmmm. I live in a desert in the SW US, the Sonoran desert. I share this land with about 8M of my fellow humans. It is probably the wettest desert on the planet, but it is still, by definition, a desert, with most areas receiving only about 150mm/yr in its bimodal precipitation regime. It is also the smallest desert biome on the planet, covering only about 260,000 square km.
The generally accepted definition of a desert is less than 250mm of annual precipitation. The UN breaks this down into desert, a
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So, the UN breaks down "desert" into "desert, arid, grassland and rangeland".
So, when someone says "desert" are they talking about LHS or RHS of the equation ?
Re:Just needs a $1000 solar panel (Score:5, Insightful)
If you give a man a fish- he can eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish, better hope he doesn't live in the desert.
I don't know where you're getting the cost of $1000 solar panel. For one appliance it's not going to cost that much. It's probably not going to cost anything in the same range as that. Even if it did. Yes, $1000 can buy a lot of water if you live near a water source. If you have to keep shipping water hundreds of miles then the costs are going to go up.
Wouldn't it be better to ship one time to a location rather than having to ship continuously for years? Also, if you have your own means of getting water you don't have to worry about- what if guerrillas take out the delivery man and steal my water? What if the shipment never arrives? You're more independent. In the end, we all want our fate and future as much in our own hands as possible.
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No, you have to worry about "what if the guerrillas take my water-making gadget?"
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You just have to provide the proper squeeze to the Hutts, and you're good.
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Yeah, OP must be trolling. It doesn't even use solar cells.
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Great, all it needs is a $1000 solar panel and you are set
Solar powered does not imply solar panels. It runs off the heat differential between a sunlit top and a shaded, air cooled condenser.
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Great, all it needs is a $1000 solar panel and you are set
Solar powered does not imply solar panels. It runs off the heat differential between a sunlit top and a shaded, air cooled condenser.
Yeah, good catch. Half the numbnuts posting on this are chattering on about solar cell efficiency and cost, etc.
Not that this is bad. I come here for the tangents as much as for the articles.
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2,260 kJ/kg
THIS is what I want to see. How does that little CPU cooler condenser scale up to these levels?
TFA indicates that this device operates on a night/day cycle. The MOF absorbs atmospheric moisture at night and releases it into the condenser during the day. So it's really just a bed of desiccant. Probably more efficient and optimized for this application. But if you want to save some money on the zirconium, just save all those packages of silica-gel that come with electronics shipments.
Dumping the condenser h
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Yes. But that only describes the performance of the desiccant. During the day, how much solar energy will it take to drive the moisture out of the desiccant and how much needs to be pulled out at the condenser? It's all a bunch of engineering/economic trade-offs. A much more efficient desiccant might not mean much if some other part of the cycle can't be implemented cost effectively.