2024-03-03 19:35:05
Arrakis is a desert planet; Sand dunes and rocks as far as the eye can see. Water is an extremely scarce and therefore valuable resource. One of the techniques for getting water is a wind trap: it captures the remaining moisture from the dry air and stores it. This is the only way the residents can survive in the novel “Dune” by Frank Herbert.
What was still science fiction when the book was published is already reality in Death Valley. Scientists are wringing clean drinking water from the air in one of the hottest and driest places on earth using a device the size of a handbag. This works with so-called metal-organic framework substances (MOFs, Metal-Organic Frameworks). Several research teams hope to be able to help extract water from the air in the most inhospitable areas. This would soon enable people in the Middle East or the Sahel to counteract the water shortage that is worsening due to climate change. “Water is a human right,” Omar Yaghi, a chemist at the University of California at Berkeley, emphasizes again and again in his Publications about MOFs. He is one of the pioneers in this field and has developed water harvesters using the material.
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