But the concept is challenging to scale, Hoek cautions, as the amount of water produced per square inch of harvester is relatively low, and thus a large harvester would potentially take up a huge amount of land.
“But maybe for a household or village scale it could be a very interesting way for someone off the grid to get fresh water,” Hoek says.
Yaghi imagines exactly that: a future where everyone without easy access to fresh water has a harvester in their yard.
“My vision is to achieve ‘personalized water,’ where people in water stressed regions have a device at home running on ambient solar, delivering the water that satisfies the basic needs of the individuals,” he says. “More than one third of the population in the world lives in water-stressed regions or is suffering from lack of clean water. The potential implications of this technology in transforming people’s lives and improving the global public health conditions are tremendous.”
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/this-device-pulls-water-out-of-desert-air-180969398/#BMIz1lTyKD0r8wWf.99