Technology Overview
ITRI has developed the Ubiquitous Water Wand (UWAW) to extract clean water from the air. Unlike traditional filtering or sedimentation of dirty water, UWAW uses thousands of single-layered graphene oxide flakes to form a graphene oxide membrane, which separates moisture and other substances from the air and condenses the collected moisture into water. When moist air passes through the membrane, only water molecules are allowed to enter quickly, and other molecules such as nitrogen and oxygen are blocked. This technology can be used in environments at 15-45 °C with a relative humidity of 20-99%.
Applications & Benefits
It is energy-saving, eco-friendly, and has been transferred to industry and applied to moisture separation devices for precision analysis. High-efficiency water production equipment can also be developed to solve water shortage problems. This technology won a 2021 R&D 100 Award.