Effect of Droplet-Removal Processes on Fog-Harvesting Performance on Wettability-Controlled Wire Array with Staggered...

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Materials Science
• Fluid Dynamics

Background:

• Freshwater resource development is critical for global water scarcity.
• Fog harvesting offers a sustainable, energy-efficient method for freshwater generation.
• Efficient droplet drainage is essential for maintaining fog harvester performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of droplet removal on water harvesting efficiency.
• To analyze droplet transfer dynamics between wettability-controlled wires in fog flow.
• To optimize fog harvester design for enhanced water collection.

Main Methods:

• Constructed fog harvesters with alternating, staggered, wettability-controlled wires.
• Observed droplet transfer from hydrophobic to hydrophilic surfaces at specific fog velocities (>1.5 m/s).
• Developed scaled-up and multilayered harvesters to improve performance.

Main Results:

• Droplet transfer contributed over 30% to total water harvesting.
• Harvesting performance increased by more than 20% compared to uniform wettability harvesters.
• Multilayered harvesters achieved a maximum yield of 15.99 g/30 min, a 10% enhancement.

Conclusions:

• Droplet transfer significantly enhances fog harvesting efficiency.
• Optimizing wettability and arrangement of harvester components is key to maximizing water yield.
• The developed multilayered harvesters show promising results for large-scale freshwater production.