Global potential for harvesting drinking water from air using solar energy

Jackson Lord (), Ashley Thomas, Neil Treat, Matthew Forkin, Robert Bain, Pierre Dulac, Cyrus H. Behroozi, Tilek Mamutov, Jillia Fongheiser, Nicole Kobilansky, Shane Washburn, Claudia Truesdell, Clare Lee and Philipp H. Schmaelzle ()
Additional contact information
Jackson Lord: X, The Moonshot Factory
Ashley Thomas: X, The Moonshot Factory
Neil Treat: X, The Moonshot Factory
Matthew Forkin: X, The Moonshot Factory
Robert Bain: UNICEF
Pierre Dulac: Google Inc.
Cyrus H. Behroozi: X, The Moonshot Factory
Tilek Mamutov: X, The Moonshot Factory
Jillia Fongheiser: X, The Moonshot Factory
Nicole Kobilansky: X, The Moonshot Factory
Shane Washburn: X, The Moonshot Factory
Claudia Truesdell: X, The Moonshot Factory
Clare Lee: X, The Moonshot Factory
Philipp H. Schmaelzle: X, The Moonshot Factory

Nature, 2021, vol. 598, issue 7882, 611-617

Abstract: Abstract Access to safely managed drinking water (SMDW) remains a global challenge, and affects 2.2 billion people1,2. Solar-driven atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) devices with continuous cycling may accelerate progress by enabling decentralized extraction of water from air3–6, but low specific yields (SY) and low daytime relative humidity (RH) have raised questions about their performance (in litres of water output per day)7–11. However, to our knowledge, no analysis has mapped the global potential of AWH12 despite favourable conditions in tropical regions, where two-thirds of people without SMDW live2. Here we show that AWH could provide SMDW for a billion people. Our assessment—using Google Earth Engine13—introduces a hypothetical 1-metre-square device with a SY profile of 0.2 to 2.5 litres per kilowatt-hour (0.1 to 1.25 litres per kilowatt-hour for a 2-metre-square device) at 30% to 90% RH, respectively. Such a device could meet a target average daily drinking water requirement of 5 litres per day per person14. We plot the impact potential of existing devices and new sorbent classes, which suggests that these targets could be met with continued technological development, and well within thermodynamic limits. Indeed, these performance targets have been achieved experimentally in demonstrations of sorbent materials15–17. Our tools can inform design trade-offs for atmospheric water harvesting devices that maximize global impact, alongside ongoing efforts to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with existing technologies.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03900-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:598:y:2021:i:7882:d:10.1038_s41586-021-03900-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03900-w

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().