New Material Sucks Drinking Water Out Of Thin Air

Senior author Omar Yaghi demonstrates how the MOF works using a model. A thin lattice of metals and organic compounds could turn moisture trapped in the atmosphere into drinkable water using only the power of the sun. By optimizing what they call a metal-organic framework (MOF) to hang on to water molecules, researchers at MIT and the University of California-Berkeley have created a system that passively catches water vapor and releases it later when exposed to heat from sunlight. Their device could offer a low-cost, sustainable means to deliver drinkable water to arid regions of the world. Their MOF is a tangled lattice of zirconium and fumarate, an organic compound. Such frameworks are composed of a dense knot of threads perfect for holding on to molecules. By altering the composition of the framework, MOF's can be optimized to grab different kinds of compounds — anything from hydrogen and methane to ...