Nanotube forests drink water from arid air

Thu, 06/12/2014 - 7:27am
Mike Williams, Rice Univ.

Rice graduate student Sehmus Ozden holds a carbon nanotube forest. Ozden treated nanotube arrays to harvest water in the same way beetles do in the desert, by combining hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces. Photo: Jeff Fitlow If you don’t want to die of thirst in the desert, be like the beetle. Or have a nanotube cup handy.

New research by scientists at Rice Univ. demonstrated that forests of carbon nanotubes can be made to harvest water molecules from arid desert air and store them for future use.

The invention they call a “hygroscopic scaffold” is detailed in Applied Materials and Interfaces.




The forests grown via water-assisted chemical vapor deposition consist of nanotubes that measure only a few nanometers across and about a centimeter long.




But with a hydrophobic bottom and hydrophilic top, the forest remained intact even after collecting 80% of its weight in water.

The amount of water vapor captured depends on the air’s humidity. An 8-mg sample (with a 0.25-sc surface) pulled in 27.4% of its weight over 11 hrs in dry air, and 80% over 13 hrs in humid air. Further tests showed the forests significantly slowed evaporation of the trapped water.


Source: Rice Univ.


Share This Story

The password field is case sensitive.