New high-tech jacket pulls drinking water from the air

The huge advance in fabric technology can collect up to one-and-a-half pints of drinkable water a day, say American scientists.

Engineers at the University of Texas developed the designer threads that harvest water directly from the air.

They say the groundbreaking technology could benefit anyone who spends much time in areas without easy access to drinking water — such as hikers, campers, runners, agricultural workers and soldiers.

Research co-leader Dr. Guihua Yu said: “Water harvesting from air is usually imagined as a stationary device such as a box, a panel or a large sorbent bed.

"We wanted to rethink the form of the technology.

"If the fabric itself can collect water from air, it opens a new direction for personal and portable water access.”

He explained that the textile incorporated into the jacket collects moisture and funnels it to detachable harvesting units.

Those units are placed in a foldable collector piece and heated to produce the water.

The jacket produced between 400 and 900 milliliters (0.7 to 1.5 pints) of drinkable water per day — depending on humidity levels, according to a study published in the journal Science Advances.

Compared with conventional water-harvesting materials, the textile showed a three- to 10-fold improvement at scale.

By focusing on the fibers rather than building another bulky device, the researchers overcame a common problem in the field.

Study co-author Dr. Keith Johnston said: “The important advance here is that the team did not simply make another material that absorbs water.

“They designed a pathway for water to move quickly, from vapor in the air, to liquid on the fiber surface, and then into the textile.

"That transport design is what allows the material to work not just in a small lab test, but in a wearable system."

The researchers are now eyeing applications beyond clothing — including backpacks, tents, emergency shelters and other outdoor gear, allowing items people carry every day to help collect water from the air.

They also plan to look at applying the technology to outdoor activities, remote field operations, disaster response, and water access in arid or infrastructure-limited regions.

A separate device developed by the same research team pulled a record amount of drinking water from the air in the hot, arid climate of the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico and the more humid environment of Austin, Texas, showing the potential to use atmospheric moisture to address drinking water shortages.

In tests, the researchers captured 1.3 liters (2.3 pints) of clean water per day in both arid and semi-humid areas.

That equates to 4.3 liters (7.5 pints) of water per kilo of moisture-capturing materials per day — more than any other research group has achieved, according to a paper published in the journal Nature Water.

Study co-lead author Weixin Guan said: “This is a big stride toward practical atmospheric water harvesting.

“This goal has been incubated over years of work, from molecular design to real-world operation, and it is especially meaningful to see those pieces finally come together in a field-ready system.”

He explained that at the center of the device is a specially engineered hydrogel fabric made from biomass-derived materials.

The fabric absorbs moisture from the air, then releases it when heated by sunlight, so the water can be condensed and collected.

The researchers say that regions where the device should perform best overlap with many of the world’s most water-stressed areas, including parts of North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Guan added: "That makes this technology especially promising as a decentralized water solution for remote communities, emergency response and other settings where conventional water systems are difficult to build or maintain."