Artificial fibres that can collect water from the air, much like how spider silk gathers dew, could be used for large-scale water collection from fog.
In places where the availability of drinking water can be low, harvesting water from air tends to be an energy-intensive process. Condensation, a common method, usually requires a surface that is kept cooler than the air temperature.
Now, Yongmei Zheng at Beihang University in China and her colleagues have designed artificial microfibre threads covered in spiral-shaped bumps that can passively attract huge droplets of water to condense on them.
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