Our Research Global access to safe drinking water in resource-constrained and water scarce areas

The water harvesting device in the desert.

Principal Investigator

Xuanhe Zhao

Uncas and Helen Whitaker Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering

Xuanhe Zhao is the Uncas and Helen Whitaker Professor at MIT. He is an internationally recognized leader in the field of soft materials and systems. He is the recipient of the Humboldt Research Award, SES Young Investigator Medal, ASME Hughes Young Investigator Award, Adhesion Society’s Young Scientist Award, NSF CAREER Award, and the ONR Young Investigator Award. His publications have received over 51,000 citations, and over 20 of his patents have been licensed by companies that benefit millions of people each year. He is the co-founder and/or scientific advisor of multiple startup companies, including SanaHeal, Magnendo, Sonologi, Obit, and Pelva.

Photo credit for headshot: Tony Pulsone

Challenge:

Can we develop a scalable, cost-effective, and decentralized water harvesting system tailored for resource-limited regions and demonstrate real-world applications?

Research Strategy

Develop PFAS absorptive materials that can be excited with microwaves to align the magnetic state of the fluorine atoms in the molecules
Optimize materials for the magnetization of the fluorines by changing he concentration of electron spins in the materials
Demonstration of methods that allow for release and transfer of magnetically aligned PFAS to an NMR spectrometer via tubing
Final integration of a polarizer and a bench top NMR and determination of the limits of detection for PFAS at EPA limits for drinking water

Project description

Currently, 2.2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and this number is projected to surge to 5 billion globally by 2050 due to the combined effects of climate change, population growth, and increasing urban, industrial, and domestic water demand. Zhao and his team aim to provide global access to safe drinking water at scale and speed by scaling up and deploying efficient, low-cost, low-maintenance, decentralized water harvesting systems, demonstrating real-world applications within two years.

Recognizing the complexities of landlocked, off-grid regions with limited energy infrastructure and maintenance access, the team’s project focuses on a solar-driven atmospheric water harvesting (SAWH) system, a fully passive system that utilizes only solar energy to extract water from ambient air, a ubiquitous resource globally without geographical limitations. The group’s technology is designed for family-scale implementation, targeting regions with constrained resources. They aim to advance and optimize the SAWH system from lab- to large-scale implementations.