Cotton Collects Water from Fog

Cotton Collects Water from Fog
Jan-25-13
Researchers have created a special coating for cotton fabric that will allow it to collect water from fogs in the desert.

The teams, from Netherlands’ Eindhoven University of Technology and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, coated an ordinary piece of cotton fabric with the polymer PNIPAAm. Normally cotton can only absorb about 18 percent of its weight in airborne water droplets, but the addition of the polymer allowed it to increase that amount to 340 percent when at temperatures up to 93ºF. Once the temperature rises, however, the polymer become hydrophobic and releases the water in a safe-to-consume liquid form.

The polymer can be used repeatedly and, unlike conventional fog harvesters, can work in completely still conditions. The developers envision sheets of the cotton being laid over crops or receptacles to absorb and release water automatically.

Image: The treated cotton in its hydrophilic and hydrophobic states.

Cotton Collects Water from Fog


More Info about this Invention:

[GIZMAG.COM]
[EINDHOVEN UNIVERSITY]
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