{"id":136339,"date":"2022-03-03T05:35:08","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T13:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/these-solar-panels-pull-in-water-vapor-to-grow-crops-in-the-desert"},"modified":"2022-03-03T05:35:08","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T13:35:08","slug":"these-solar-panels-pull-in-water-vapor-to-grow-crops-in-the-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/these-solar-panels-pull-in-water-vapor-to-grow-crops-in-the-desert","title":{"rendered":"These solar panels pull in water vapor to grow crops in the desert"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/these-solar-panels-pull-in-water-vapor-to-grow-crops-in-the-desert.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Using a unique hydrogel, scientists in Saudi Arabia created a solar-driven system that successfully grows spinach by using water drawn from the air while producing electricity. The proof-of-concept design, described March 1 in the journal <i>Cell Reports Physical Science<\/i>, offers a sustainable, low-cost strategy to improve food and water security for people living in dry-climate regions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA fraction of the world\u2019s population still doesn\u2019t have access to <a href=\"https:\/\/techxplore.com\/tags\/clean+water\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">clean water<\/a> or green power, and many of them live in rural areas with arid or semi-arid climate,\u201d says senior author Peng Wang, a professor of environmental science and engineering at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). \u201cOur design makes <a href=\"https:\/\/techxplore.com\/tags\/water\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">water<\/a> out of air using <a href=\"https:\/\/techxplore.com\/tags\/clean+energy\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">clean energy<\/a> that would\u2019ve been wasted and is suitable for decentralized, small-scale farms in remote places like deserts and oceanic islands.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The system, called WEC<sup>2<\/sup>P, is composed of a solar photovoltaic panel placed atop a layer of hydrogel, which is mounted on top of a large metal box to condense and collect water. Wang and his team developed the hydrogel in their prior research, and the material can effectively absorb <a href=\"https:\/\/techxplore.com\/tags\/water+vapor\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">water vapor<\/a> from ambient air and release the water content when heated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Using a unique hydrogel, scientists in Saudi Arabia created a solar-driven system that successfully grows spinach by using water drawn from the air while producing electricity. The proof-of-concept design, described March 1 in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science, offers a sustainable, low-cost strategy to improve food and water security for people living in dry-climate [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[493,1633,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climatology","category-solar-power","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}