Fog harvesting draws inspiration from Namib beetle
April 22nd, 2011 - 4:44 pm ICT by IANSWashington, April 22 (IANS) In the arid Namib desert on the west coast of Africa, the Namib beetle survives by collecting water droplets on its bumpy back, then lets the moisture roll down into its mouth. Fog harvesting, which could be a big help to the poor, is not very different.
Shreerang Chhatre, doctoral scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, works on fog harvesting that, like the beetle, attracts water droplets.
A fog harvesting device, which consists of a fence-like mesh panel to attract water droplets, would help poor villagers collect clean water nearer homes, instead of spending hours carrying it from distant wells or streams, according to an MIT statement.
The burden of finding and transporting that water falls heavily on women and children in developing countries. “As a middle class person, I think it’s terrible that the poor have to spend hours a day, walking just to obtain a basic necessity,” Chhatre says.
WHO and Unicef estimate that nearly 900 million people worldwide live without safe drinking water.
Interest in fog harvesting dates to the 1990s, and increased when new research on the Namib beetle made a splash in 2001. A few technologists saw potential in the concept for people.
In some field tests, fog harvesters have captured one litre of water per one square metre of mesh daily. Chhatre and his colleagues are conducting lab tests to improve the water collection ability of existing meshes.
In this sense, the beetle’s physiology is an inspiration for human fog harvesting. It is able to drink in an area devoid of flowing water.
“We tried to replicate what the beetle has, but found this kind of open permeable surface is better,” Chhatre says.
“The beetle only needs to drink a few micro-liters of water. We want to capture as large a quantity as possible.”
Whatever Chhatre’s success, he agrees it will not be easy to turn fog-harvesting technology into a viable enterprise.
“As the number of people and businesses in the world increases and rainfall stays the same, more people will be looking for alternatives,” says Robert Schemenauer, executive director of FogQuest, a Canadian charity, which has tested projects in Chile and Guatemala.
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Tags: beetle, doctoral scholar, flowing water, harvesters, indian institute of technology, indian institute of technology bombay, lab tests, liters of water, massachusetts institute of technology, massachusetts institute of technology mit, mesh panel, meshes, middle class person, namib desert, poor villagers, safe drinking water, square metre, unicef, water collection, water droplets