The textile incorporated into the jacket collects moisture and funnels it to detachable harvesting units. Those units are placed in a foldable collector piece and heated to produce the water.<\/p>\n
![\"Researcher](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2026-ME-Jacket-54-200x300.jpg\")
The detachable harvesting units are placed in a foldable collector piece and heated to produce the water.<\/p>\n
The jacket produced between 400 and 900 milliliters of drinkable water per day, about 14 to 30 ounces, depending on humidity levels.<\/p>\n
Compared with conventional water-harvesting materials, the textile showed a three- to 10-fold improvement at scale. By focusing on the fibers rather than building another bulky device, the researchers overcame a common problem in the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe important advance here is that the team did not simply make another material that absorbs water,\u201d said Keith Johnston, co-author and chair professor of the Cockrell School of Engineering\u2019s McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering. \u201cThey designed a pathway for water to move quickly, from vapor in the air, to liquid on the fiber surface, and then into the textile. That transport design is what allows the material to work not just in a small lab test, but in a wearable system.\u201d<\/p>\n
The researchers are eyeing applications beyond clothing, including backpacks, tents, emergency shelters and other outdoor gear, allowing items people carry every day to help collect water from the air. Soon, they will look at applying the technology to outdoor activities, remote field operations, disaster response, and water access in arid or infrastructure-limited regions.<\/p>\n
The textile work comes as a separate device from the same research team pulled a record amount of drinking water from the air in the hot, arid climate of the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico\u00a0and the more humid environment of Austin, demonstrating the\u00a0real-world\u00a0potential\u00a0to\u00a0use atmospheric moisture to\u00a0address drinking water shortages.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0tests, the\u00a0researchers\u00a0captured\u00a01.3\u00a0liters\u00a0of clean water\u00a0per day in\u00a0both arid and semi-humid\u00a0areas. That equates to\u00a04.3<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2026-ME-Yu-Harvester-1-1-300x200.jpg\")
The solar water-harvesting device pulled a record amount of drinking water from the arid climate of the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico and the humid climate of Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n
liters of water per kilogram of moisture-capturing materials\u00a0per day,\u00a0more than any\u00a0other\u00a0research group\u00a0has\u00a0achieved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a big stride toward practical atmospheric water harvesting,\u201d said Weixin Guan, one of the lead authors of a new paper published in Nature Water<\/a>. \u201cThis goal has been incubated over years of work, from molecular design to real-world operation, and it is especially meaningful to see those pieces finally come together in a field-ready system.\u201d<\/p>\n At the center of the device is a specially engineered hydrogel fabric made from biomass-derived materials. The fabric absorbs moisture from the air, then releases it when heated by sunlight,\u00a0so the water can be condensed and collected.<\/p>\n The regions where the device should perform best overlap with many of the world\u2019s most water-stressed areas, including parts of North Africa, the Middle East, South\u00a0Asia\u00a0and sub-Saharan Africa.\u00a0That makes this technology especially promising as a decentralized water solution for remote communities, emergency\u00a0response\u00a0and other settings where conventional water systems are difficult to build or\u00a0maintain.<\/p>\n