A new device extracts up to 1,000 liters of clean water a day from desert air, offering a potential backup supply when storms or drought disrupt central systems. The machine, developed by 2025 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry Omar Yaghi, is designed to operate in arid conditions with humidity as low as 20%. His company, Atoco, says the unit can function without connection to the power grid.
The system uses a branch of science known as reticular chemistry. Inside the container-sized unit are Metal-Organic Frameworks, synthetic porous materials engineered at the molecular level.
These materials have an extremely large internal surface area. Even a few grams can match the area of a football arena. That structure allows the material to capture moisture from the air and release it as liquid water.
1000L/day is not enough for a community, you’re going to need multiple shipping containers worth of expensive material. Then you’ve got to put them far enough apart that they don’t interfere with each other’s operation, and lay a kilometer of pipes from each of them into a central water supply. Maintain the pipes, clean the devices when dust gets on them. Maybe the organic part of the material decays after a while so you need new ones.
It seems implausible that all of this would cost less than a pump, pipeline, well, or even rain water catchment system.
And I’m not thinking of survivalists, I’m thinking of rich people trying to be respectable while preparing for climate change in a selfish way, or coopting ‘preparation’ for selfishness. Glass Onion types.