Professor Guihua Yu led UT Austin water harvesting jacket project
Technology
Engineers at the University of Texas at Austin have designed a jacket that literally pulls clean drinking water out of thin air.
Using a special hydrogel fabric, it absorbs moisture, stores it in detachable units, and then releases drinkable water when heated.
Professor Guihua Yu led the project, and their work just got published in Science Advances.
Field tests yield 400-900 ml daily
Field tests in Texas and China showed the jacket can make 400 to 900 mL of water per day depending on humidity, up to 10 times more than similar technology.
The team sees this as a game-changer for hikers, disaster responders, and anyone in remote or dry places.
They're hoping to improve it further and are looking for partners to help scale things up.