1. Optimal Design of Multi-Layer Fog Collectors
- Author
-
Azeem, Musaddaq, Guèrin, Adrien, Dumais, Thomas, Caminos, Luis, Goldstein, Raymond E., Pesci, Adriana I., Rivera, Juan de Dios, Torres, María Josefina, Wiener, Jakub, Campos, José Luis, and Dumais, Jacques
- Subjects
Physics - Fluid Dynamics ,Condensed Matter - Soft Condensed Matter ,Physics - Applied Physics - Abstract
The growing concerns over desertification have spurred research into technologies aimed at acquiring water from non-traditional sources such as dew, fog, and water vapor. Some of the most promising developments have focused on improving designs to collect water from fog. However, the absence of a shared framework to predict, measure and compare the water collection efficiencies of new prototypes is becoming a major obstacle to progress in the field. We address this problem by providing a general theory to design efficient fog collectors as well as a concrete experimental protocol to furnish our theory with all the necessary parameters to quantify the effective water collection efficiency. We show in particular that multi-layer collectors are required for high fog collection efficiency and that all efficient designs are found within a narrow range of mesh porosity. We support our conclusions with measurements on simple multi-layer harp collectors., Comment: 33 pages, 8 figures (including supplemental material); in press at ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
- Published
- 2020