Fog harvesting on micro-structured metal meshes: Effect of surface ageing

Showket, Jasafa; Majumder, Shibangi; Kumar, Nirbhay; Sett, Soumyadip; Mahapatra, Pallab Sinha

doi:10.1016/j.mne.2023.100236

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Keeping in view that in realistic situations, mass-manufactured, wettability-engineered fog-harvesting meshes would entail surface imperfections at the microscale and even surface impurities (e.g., oil, volatile organic compounds, chemicals, scales and dust), investigation into the role of contact-line pinning in clogging of fog harvesting meshes may be taken up as a future exercise, using the current results as baseline data. Similar exploits into wettability-engineered mesh durability, reliability of performance, and maintenance aspects also remain to be investigated under realistic scenarios , to estimate the impact of aging on the clog-free operation of the mesh. Also, it is worth noting that the actual metal mesh is often formed by weaving, where the gaps between the crossed mesh wires can create additional capillary effect, leading to pinning of droplets and partial clogging as shown in Figure A.…”

Section: Conclusion and Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Droplet Morphology-Based Wettability Tuning and Design of Fog Harvesting Mesh to Minimize Mesh-Clogging

Mukhopadhyay,

Datta,

Dutta

et al. 2024

Langmuir

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Fog harvesting relies on intercepting atmospheric or industrial fog by placing a porous obstacle, for example, a mesh and collecting the deposited water. In the face of global water scarcity, such fog harvesting has emerged as a viable alternative source of potable water. Typical fog harvesting meshes suffer from poor collection efficiency due to aerodynamic bypassing of the oncoming fog stream and poor collection of the deposited water from the mesh. One pestering challenge in this context is the frequent clogging up of mesh pores by the deposited fog water, which not only yields low drainage efficiency but also generates high aerodynamic resistance to the oncoming fog stream, thereby negatively impacting the fog collection efficiency. Minimizing the clogging is possible by rendering the mesh fibers superhydrophobic, but that entails other detrimental effects like premature dripping and flowinduced re-entrainment of water droplets into the fog stream from the mesh fiber. Herein, we improvise on traditional interweaved metal mesh designs by defining critical parameters, viz., mesh pitch, shade coefficient, and fiber wettability, and deducing their optimal values from numerically and experimentally observed morphology of collected fog water droplets under various operating scenarios. We extend our investigations over a varying range of mesh-wettability, including superhydrophilic and hydrophobic fibers, and go on to find optimal shade coefficients which would theoretically render clog-proof fog harvesting meshes. The aerodynamic, deposition, and overall collection efficiencies are characterized. Hydrophobic meshes with square pores, having fiber diameters smaller than the capillary length scale of water, and an optimal shade coefficient are found to be the most effective design of such clog-proof meshes.

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Section: Conclusion and Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%