Novel Composites for Atmospheric Water Absorption

An abundant supply of fresh water is one of the leading challenges of the 21st century. As such, significant attention has recently been focused on one’s ability to capture (or scavenge) water directly from the atmosphere. However, in general, current approaches either require large energy consumption per unit of water recovered or only function under strict environmental conditions (like extremely high relative humidity, i.e., fog or mist). We have developed a novel composite material using “passive” capillary condensation process with a hierarchically order structure which dramatically enhance its capacity for absorption of water from ambient air under a variety of humidity conditions. This new structure greatly increases the efficiency of absorption when compared to the native material, which makes this idea applicable to a variety of adsorbent materials for efficiency enhancement.