Review of Rain and Atmospheric Water Harvesting History and Technology

Abstract

Water is an essential resource and is under increased strain year after year. Fresh water can be a difficult resource to come by, but the solution may lie in the invisible water source that surrounds us. The atmosphere contains 12.9 trillion m3 of fresh water in liquid and vapor forms. Rain and fog harvesting were the first solutions developed in ancient times, taking advantage of water that already existed in a liquid state. These technologies do not require energy input to overcome the enthalpy of condensation and thus are passive in nature. They are, however, limited to climates and regions that experience regular rainfall or 100% relative humidity (RH) for rainwater and fog harvesting, respectively. People living in areas outside of the usable range needed to look deeper for a solution. With the advent of refrigeration in the 20th century, techniques came that enabled access to the more elusive water vapor (i.e., <100% RH) that exists in the atmosphere. Refrigeration based dewing (RBD) is the most common technique of collecting water vapor from the atmosphere and was first developed in the 1930s but found greater adoption in the 1980s. RBD is the process of cooling ambient air to the dew point temperature. At this temperature water vapor in the atmosphere will begin to condense, forming liquid droplets. As the humidity ratio, or amount of water in a given quantity of air (gwater/kgdry-air) continues to decrease, RBD becomes infeasible. Below a threshold of about 3.5 gwater/kgdry-air the dewpoint temperature is below the freezing point and ice is formed during condensation in place of liquid water. Since the turn of the century, many researchers have made significant progress in developing a new wave of water harvesters capable of operating in much more arid climates than previously accessible with RBD. At lower humidity ratios more effort must be expended to produce the same amount of liquid water. Membrane and sorbent-based systems can be designed as passive or active; both aim to gather a high concentration of water vapor from the ambient, creating local regions of increased relative humidity. Sorbent-based systems utilize the intrinsic hydrophilicity of solid and liquid desiccants to capture and store water vapor from the atmosphere in either their pore structure (adsorbents) or in solution (absorbents). Membrane separators utilize a semipermeable membrane that allows water vapor to pass through but blocks the free passage of air, creating a region of much higher relative humidity than the environment. Technologies that concentrate water vapor must utilize an additional condensation step to produce liquid water. The advantage gained by these advancements is their ability to provide access to clean water for even the most arid climates around the globe, where the need for secure water is the greatest. Increased demand for water has led scientists and engineers to develop novel materials and climb the energy ladder, overcoming the energy requirements of atmospheric water harvesting. Many research groups around the world are working quickly to develop new technologies and more efficient water harvesters.