Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed a water harvesting device that can extract 1.5 gallons of drinking water daily from arid air, potentially providing a new tool for water-scarce regions worldwide.
The device uses vertical copper fins coated with zeolite material to pull moisture from air with just 30 percent humidity—conditions classified as arid. In a 24-hour cycle, the system can produce 5.8 liters of water per kilogram of material used, enough to meet several people's daily water needs.
The MIT design maximizes air exposure through copper sheets sandwiched in copper foams, with fins spaced just 2 millimeters apart12. After an hour of collecting water on the zeolite coating, the copper sheets heat to 184°C to release the absorbed moisture2. The team suggests the device could utilize waste heat from buildings or vehicles to reach the required temperature2.
According to New Atlas, the harvester can produce up to 1.3 liters of drinkable water per day per liter of adsorbent coating used in arid conditions1. This represents a substantial improvement over many existing devices, which often capture only around 100 milliliters per kilogram of material2.
Earlier MIT research focused on metal-organic frameworks, which could extract water from desert air with humidity as low as 10 percent but required expensive materials1. Field tests in Tempe, Arizona, in 2018 produced only about a quarter-liter per day per kilogram of material2.
The new zeolite-based approach offers continuous operation day and night, unlike systems that collect water overnight and release it in the morning3. Traditional water extraction methods require much higher humidity levels—100 percent for fog harvesting and above 50 percent for dew-harvesting systems1.
Paul Westerhoff, a professor at Arizona State University who moderated the first international Atmospheric Water Harvesting Summit in 2024, noted that while the technology has gained interest from industries including healthcare and military applications, it remains underutilized1.
The innovation comes as projections indicate that by 2030, 40 percent of global water requirements may go unmet, with two-thirds of the world's population already facing water scarcity2. The Earth's atmosphere contains approximately 13 trillion liters of fresh water—equivalent to about 10 percent of all freshwater in lakes and rivers globally3.
