Nearly all passive water-from-air devices described in articles are based on false claims. Peltier-based, desiccant/absorption/adsorption based, etc. All end up not working, or not existing. This has been common for ~10 years.
Which category does this fall into?:
- Fraud
- Incompetence / misunderstanding that wasn't cleared up prior to publishing an article
- Neither; this works as expectedThe design seems reasonable. It seems like a scaled down version of this MIT one that uses similar principles:
https://news.mit.edu/2025/window-sized-device-taps-air-safe-...
So my vote is for working as expected.
It is a dessicant dehumidifier, useless for the same reason as this MIT/Berkley thing from 9 years ago.
Here's one that uses exotic materials that the developer got the 2025 Nobel chemistry prize for:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03875-w