(116c) An Efficient Method of Dew Harvesting By the Corona Discharge

Shortage of clean water is an extremely serious global problem, affecting 4 billion people. Many ways of solving this problem have been proposed and studied. Among them, dew harvesting has been a subject of intense research. It is, however, challenging to collect water on condensation surfaces with high efficiency. Here a new method of dew harvesting, accommodated by accelerated droplet coalescence and shedding via the corona discharge. This electrically triggered droplet coalescence will promote appearance of bigger droplets, which in turn will accelerate the droplet shedding, making the shedding onset time to be reduced by 68.3%, as will be demonstrated. The water collection efficiency reaches approximately 84.6% even with a intermittent electrical triggering of a pulse charge deposition. This work will show a novel droplet manipulation route, inspiring an innovation in active water-harvesting technologies.