Omar Yaghi: Harvesting water from desert air

Lecture by Dr Omar Yaghi, winner of the the 2019 Gregori Aminoff Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, at the Molecular Frontiers Symposium "Planet Earth: A Scientific Journey", at Stockholm University May 9-10, 2019.

[@richardpage7323]

There is something profoundly significant in the design of the box here, in that in the ancient world the ancient Persians at Parsagadae and Romans in Cyrenia had a construction to create water in the desert using marble, obviously this is an extraordinary improvement and I would love to see this constructed to scale with an underground cone reservoir. What an exceptional development! The science here is beautiful!

[@warrenjames6386]

This will change the world - for the better. Well done, Omar and team.

[@Xolotl000]

If it's made available to the masses, and not privatized and killed by powers whom benifit from water scarcity .

[@warrenjames6386]

@@Xolotl000 Agree, but I think we (the masses) will win this one. The cat is already out of the bag.

[@Xolotl000]

@@warrenjames6386 I hope you're right.. but it seems like this could have already been much more widely available than it is...

[@jcm730]

With solar power/battery storage plus harvesting your own water and perhaps growing your own food hydroponically, technology is FREEING the individual. One can now buy VERY cheap raw land that doesn't have city water or electric and set up a VERY LOW cost living situation. We are living in an awesome time of liberation from big city municipalities thus empowering the individual.

[@leightondawson5447]

Fantastic :) This should be getting more attention!

[@rb8913]

Because they don’t want us to know about it. 5 years ago, there were so many water harvesting from air videos on youtube, diy’s, machines, etc- now there is barely any.

[@niranjanpaul2176]

Sustainable development is a taboo for the corporates you see.

[@Xolotl000]

But then how would your water prices keep getting hiked?

[@peterhickox9137]

Fascinating that this professor , his three students are hero’s of the world one hundred fifty countries that lack water and from University of Berkeley extremely intelligent. ♥️💯🇺🇸👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[@Mako-tm6qw]

That was an amazing presentation.

[@RaymundoHB]

Amazing!!!!

[@rn-wilx3952]

WOW ?! we need this

[@margaretmollohan5543]

That is fantastic we can collect water from air when drought days!!

[@williamlloyd3769]

Maybe we’ll all become water farmers like Luke’s uncle on Tatooine!

[@germangomez4776]

thanks Yaghi for inspiring us in science materials.

[@karenfulton8795]

I live in Australia, and have an interest in water production. I would like to know where to get the Mof from and prices? lve looked at a variety of ways of producing water without using expensive energy, the mof method sounds effective. Humidity is high during spring and summer 30 - 80% here in Qld maybe suitable for the conditions.

[@MoleCluesTV]

Hi Karen, I encourage you to contact Prof Yaghi's research group. You will find their contact info at the UC Berkeley homepage.

[@macdermesser]

Is the material itself hydroscopic or does the microstructure of the material function as a one-way gate for ambient water vapor? It seems that the water vapor forms an electrostatic bond with the material once it enters the lattice, thus keeping the vapor pressure of water within the lattice lower than ambient and allowing more water vapor to enter. Until the material reaches a saturation point, water molecules will "lose" their contribution to the internal vapor pressure of the matrix (via electrostatic attraction and immobilization) as they permeate the microstructure, thus allowing more water to enter and become captured. Is this the actual operating principle?

[@mytube1000javed]

Excellent work. Where can I buy MOF 303 ?

[@Xolotl000]

Did you end up finding a place? I'm looking now.

[@rn-wilx3952]

Imagine 1000 devices and 100,000 Palm or Olive or Fig trees! in the dessert? my dream

[@ShafiqUllahktk]

that a great

[@daddu1433]

I want to support drought hit farmers in my village who are greatly stressed. How do I get this to my place in India. Need some leads please.

[@daddyview7392]

Would somebody tell me where can i buy the WaHa 200?

[@supermariogamer64]

Omar yaghi is my relative our family yaghi we traveled the world

[@marcogarcia3064]

Professor I bought some land in the NE Nevada desert, and have been studying methods of providing water w/out using ground water. I want to transform these acres to naturally heal itself.

[@antontavitian8904]

Dear Marco, I hope you are well. Did you manage to set up a system to do this? I am also looking to reforest a medium-sized patch of land in the Nevada desert, but I am not yet sure how to go about it. I would love to hear how it's working out for you! Best regards, Anton

[@2ndpersondancing]

Check out 'holding back the Sahara' and Yacouba Sawadogo, a farmer in Burkina Faso. Half moons dug into the surface, so that rains which happened (albeit infrequently) would not flow away quite so quickly, but would pool in those half moons, while presumably micronutrients would get concentrated there. Eventually, from sand to soil. Also begin looking at #permaculture for more of maximizing what's available.

[@michellla93]

How would the adsorption of water effect environmental factors? Such as local flora?

[@Xolotl000]

Imagine this being used near the coast. Sea air is moisture Rich for obvious reasons. Desalination without the cost

[@QuesoCookies]

There's about a 40 trillion gallons of water in the atmosphere at large, if each of their large units were taking 6000 gallons out of it per day, they each be affecting only .0000000015% of the atmospheric water.

[@Xolotl000]

@@QuesoCookies those are some fun numbers to conceptualize.

[@2ndpersondancing]

Update?

[@seeba6871]

I want to do my PhD on MOFs. Please guide.

[@badrbahr7666]

J'ai pensé à ce projet en 2007 , je l'ai baptisé "les robinets de l'espace"

[@ES-kq5fh]

what does it mean when he says, "carry out things as selective as they would be in a biological system"?

[@QuesoCookies]

By ordering mofs with specific structures in certain ways, molecules can be separated and recombined in selective ways just as in biological systems. So say you have structures that adsorbs H20, CO2, CH2O, C, H2, and O2. You could order them such that the C, H2, and O2 mofs were adjacent to the CO2 and H2O mofs, so that the first set adsorbed the independent elements from the second set, and then had the CH20 and H2O mofs adjecent to those. You could theoretically have CO2 and H2O being converted to CH2O, H2O, and O2, which is essentally photosynthesis.

[@electric7487]

LOL, this aged like milk.