Applications of innovative materials and thermal process for atmospheric water generation

Water shortage is considered as one of the most important issue of the last years, and this problem may be due to physical shortage or scarcity in access due to lack of appropriate infrastructure. In this context, the Agenda 2030 was signed in 2015 with the aim to develop an action program for people, the planet and prosperity. Goal number six of the agenda focuses on ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. Different solutions can be implemented to provide fresh and drinkable water from natural resources, such as desalination of seawater, exploitation of groundwater, and water harvesting from the air. The last solution may result the most hopeful, since the process can be also driven by using a low grade renewable energy source. The development of this thesis aims to highlight the adsorption and desorption properties of an innovative material, which is a sodium alginate, to be used as sorption material within an atmospheric water harvesting system for the production of fresh water. Tests have been done with the use of a thermobalance which can measure the water content within a sample of testing material, at different temperature conditions. The regeneration process can be performed for different period, according to the relative humidity of the material at the beginning of the test. In the end, the properties obtained from the tests have been put in comparison with the well-know silica gel sorption material, to highlight differences or similarities. Thanks to the results obtained it was clearly that the alginate sorption material is suitable for water harvesting application due to its high adsorption capacity, even if it takes a long time to perform the regeneration process.