![\"Desert](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/549813_shutterstock_536957554_993187.jpg\")
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A bioinspired system for harvesting water from soil offers a sustainable solution to water scarcity in arid environments, according to the Seoul National University and Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology researchers who developed it.<\/p>\n
Desert horned lizards (Phrynosoma platyrhinos) have unique skin microchannels to enable water collection in the dry climate of North America where they live. Exactly how they drink the collected water, however, has \u2018long remained elusive\u2019, according to the research team.<\/p>\n
After closely observing 12 lizards, the researchers have revealed that these lizards use \u2018unique\u2019 rhythmic jaw movements to squeeze and transport water from their skin \u2013 a process that they have now translated into a multifunctional water system.<\/p>\n
The lizards use their skin to harvest water from raindrops and moist or damp spots of soil through capillary action in the arid deserts of North America. The researchers showed that slow opening of the lizards\u2019 jaws then allows the initial drawing of this water into the corners of their mouths between their lower and upper jaws. Upon rapid closing of the jaws, the skin at the corner folds inward, squeezing the water into the lizards\u2019 mouths.<\/p>\n
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Through hydrodynamic modelling, the researchers found this motion facilitates efficient water intake. They applied these insights to an artificial system which they say \u2018holds promise\u2019 for regions where water is scarce but could be gathered instead from damp soil.<\/p>\n
In tests, the \u2018lizard-jaw mimicking device\u2019 made use of porous media similar to the microchannels on the lizards\u2019 skin to harvest water from a pile of glass beads within a polymer reservoir that simulates soil. It also makes use of an asymmetric cyclic motion seen in the jaw movements of horned lizards to pump the gathered water, applied to two glass plates \u2013 one fixed and one hinged.<\/p>\n
\u2018Much of the world\u2019s untapped water isn\u2019t in rivers or reservoirs but locked in damp, often contaminated soil that\u2019s difficult to use \u2013 and the desert horned lizard showed us it can be drawn out through simple, rhythmic capillary action rather than high pressure or large energy inputs,\u2019 explains Ho-Young Kim<\/a> at Seoul National University. \u2018Because our system collects and purifies in a single low-power step and scales by running many small units in parallel, it\u2019s well suited to off-grid, resource-limited settings, from remote arid communities to disaster relief. We see it less as a single device than as a flexible, nature-inspired template for sustainable water harvesting where conventional infrastructure can\u2019t reach.\u2019<\/p>\n A Nafion ion-exchange material was also integrated into the pores of the spongey material to remove harmful contaminants like heavy metals and purify the water. After saturation, the Nafion coating can be regenerated by soaking it in acidic solution for around 30 minutes, restoring its performance. The research team notes that even in the presence of a \u2018complex mixture of cations\u2019 found in damp soil, the system remains capable of removing heavy metals and may also find application in the purification of brackish water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bioinspired system for harvesting water from soil offers a sustainable solution to water scarcity in arid environments,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,82],"class_list":["post-517498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}