Scalable Drop-to-Film Condensation on a Nanostructured Hierarchical Surface for Enhanced Humidity Harvesting

Active cooling-based atmospheric water generators, despite their growing demand, continue to be energy intensive and offer poor collection efficiencies (energy consumption per liter of water production). Despite progress in micro-/ nanofabrication techniques and functional coatings, advanced surfaces have not been successfully scaled onto such harvesters to accelerate condensation and improve their efficiencies. Here, we present a scalable dual-nanostructured hierarchical surface that comprises sporadically distributed bundles of randomly oriented faceted microcones having facets composed of nanostructures, which are either bumps or ridges. Condensate removal on this surface occurs via drop-to-film coalescence, followed by film shedding in the form of macrodrops. Compared to a conventional plain metal surface used for condensation, the improvement in latent heat transfer coefficient using a hierarchically textured surface ranged from 19.9% at a subcooling of similar to 8 degrees C to 1048.4% at a subcooling of similar to 1 degrees C in laboratory scale experiments, subcooling being defined with respect to the dew point. To demonstrate utility at industrial scale and to ensure scalability of the modified surfaces, we create a prototype assembly comprising a tube-fin heat exchanger with hierarchically textured fins, cooled using a standard refrigeration cycle, producing similar to 25 L of water per day. The prototype containing hierarchically textured fins provides similar to 10.8% enhanced water collection at similar to 10.4% improved average collection efficiency compared to the traditional water generator when tested in outdoor conditions.

Automated summary

Despite the increasing demand for active cooling-based atmospheric water generators, they remain energy intensive and inefficient. This study introduces a scalable dual-nanostructured hierarchical surface for improving water collection efficiency through enhanced condensation. Lab experiments showed significant improvement in latent heat transfer coefficient compared to conventional surfaces, indicating the potential for industrial-scale application.