According to The Brighter Side, researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a new technology that is able to collect water on a 24-hour basis without any energy input, even directly under the sun.

The new device has a specially coated glass panel that reflects solar light and also radiates away its own heat, which enables it to cool itself down by 15 degrees Celsius when compared to the ambient temperature. Below the panel, water vapors from the air condense into drinkable water.

To achieve this, researchers have coated the glass with special types of polymer and silver layers. The cooling of the device happens through the cone-shaped radiation shield, which is able to deflect heat radiation away from the device into the atmosphere.

Testing conducted so far on the roof of an ETH building in Zurich showed that the new device is able to collect twice as much water in a day as the best passive, foil-based water collector.

The test device had a 10-centimeter diameter panel that, under real-world conditions, was able to collect 4.6 milliliters of water per day, with larger panels being able to collect more water.

Photo source: ETH Zurich

Under ideal conditions, scientists were able to collect 0.53 deciliters (0.053 liters) of water per square meter of the special panel per hour.

Iwan Hächler, doctoral student in the group of Dimos Poulikakos, Professor of Thermodynamics at ETH Zurich, said that "this is close to the theoretical maximum value of 0.6 deciliters (0.06 liters) per hour, which is physically impossible to exceed."

Other passive technology collectors require the condensed water to be wiped from a surface, process which uses energy.

Without doing this, a significant amount of the condensed water would stay on the surface of the panel and remain unusable, preventing further condensation.

The team of scientists wanted to create a new technology that would enable countries with limited water availability to obtain drinkable water, in particular emerging countries.

Hopefully, these countries can use this new technology or even combine it with existing technologies, such as water desalinization to increase their water production capacity.