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“Fog Harp” Harvests Water Even in the Lightest Fog
Alex Parrish, Virginia Tech via Phys.org / April 17, 2020

What do you get when you cross a novel approach to water harvesting with a light fog? The answer: a lot more water than you expected.

The development of the fog harp, a Virginia Tech interdisciplinary pairing of engineering with biomimetic design, was first reported in 2018. The hope behind the fog harp’s development was simple: in areas of the world where water is scarce but fog is present, pulling usable water from fog could become a sustainable option. While fog nets are already in use, the superior efficiency of the fog harp could dramatically increase the number of regions worldwide where fog harvesting is viable. The difference comes in the fog harp’s uncanny ability to derive water from less dense fog than its predecessors.

Credit: Peter Means for Virginia Tech.

The “harp” design uses parallel wires to collect ambient water from fog, whereas current technology in use around the globe relies primarily on a screen mesh. The lab-proven theory for the new device was that parallel wires are more efficient at gathering water, avoiding clogs and enhancing drainage into the collector. The researchers’ small-scale early tests showed that in high-fog conditions, their harps outpaced those with meshes by a factor of two to one.