Materials and devices for atmospheric water harvesting

Water scarcity is rising as one of the global challenges beside climate change. The recovery of water under various environments has been the focus of many research groups. Atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) is a very promising approach to solve this issue. This perspective concerns recent advances in the research area of AWH. Three common categories of AWH that are introduced include fog harvesting, dewing, and sorption. Focus is put on sorption materials and its related devices because of its suitability for working at low relative humidity (RH) conditions, typical for arid regions. Current developments in porous adsorbents, including silica and zeolites, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), aerogel, and manganese oxides are discussed. A few AWH devices utilizing MOFs to trap and release water under solar irradiation and their field-testing performance in arid climates are discussed. An outlook for improving the efficiency of adsorbents and device and new opportunities is also provided.