Researchers at ETH Zurich have created a new device that harvests water from the air around the clock, with no energy input and even during hot days with blazing sun.
From The Brighter Side of News:
The new device essentially consists of a specially coated glass pane, which both reflects solar radiation and also radiates away its own heat through the atmosphere to the outer space. It thus cools itself down to as much as 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) below the ambient temperature. On the underside of this pane, water vapour from the air condenses into water.
As tests of the new device under real-world conditions on the roof of an ETH building in Zurich showed, the new technology can produce at least twice as much water per area per day as the best current passive technologies based on foils: the small pilot system with a pane diameter of 10 centimetres delivered 4.6 millilitres of water per day under real-world conditions. Larger devices with larger panes would produce more water accordingly. The scientists were able to show that, under ideal conditions, they could harvest up to 0.53 decilitres (approximately 1.8 fluid ounces) of water per square metre of pane surface per hour.