ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2018 Apr 11;10(14):11979-11986. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b17488. Epub 2018 Mar 28.
Fog harvesting is a useful technique for obtaining fresh water in arid climates. The wire meshes currently utilized for fog harvesting suffer from dual constraints: coarse meshes cannot efficiently capture microscopic fog droplets, whereas fine meshes suffer from clogging issues. Here, we design and fabricate fog harvesters comprising an array of vertical wires, which we call "fog harps". Under controlled laboratory conditions, the fog-harvesting rates for fog harps with three different wire diameters were compared to conventional meshes of equivalent dimensions. As expected for the mesh structures, the mid-sized wires exhibited the largest fog collection rate, with a drop-off in performance for the fine or coarse meshes. In contrast, the fog-harvesting rate continually increased with decreasing wire diameter for the fog harps due to efficient droplet shedding that prevented clogging. This resulted in a 3-fold enhancement in the fog-harvesting rate for the harp design compared to an equivalent mesh.
雾水收集是在干旱气候中获取淡水的一种有效技术。目前用于雾水收集的金属网存在双重限制：粗网无法有效地捕获微小的雾滴，而细网则存在堵塞问题。在这里，我们设计并制造了由垂直金属丝组成的雾水收集器，我们称之为“雾琴”。在受控的实验室条件下，我们比较了具有三种不同金属丝直径的雾琴与等效尺寸的传统金属网的雾水收集率。正如预期的那样，对于金属网结构，中等大小的金属丝表现出最大的雾水收集率，而细金属丝或粗金属丝的性能则有所下降。相比之下，由于能够有效地去除雾滴从而防止堵塞，雾琴的雾水收集率随着金属丝直径的减小而持续增加。与等效的金属网相比，这种雾琴设计的雾水收集率提高了 3 倍。
