a jacket designed to collect water
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin are experimenting with a prototype jacket capable of collecting atmospheric water. Their piece collects moisture directly from the air through a specially engineered fabric, thus turning an intimate outdoor garment into a mobile water collection surface.
The project shifts a technology that we often imagine as a box, panel or fixed sorbent bed into fabric. Developed by engineers at UT Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering, the jacket uses a biomass-derived hydrogel fiber that absorbs moisture from the environment and moves it through the fabric to removable harvesting units.
Once removed, these units are placed inside a collapsible collector and heated, producing potable water from the moisture held in the material.
the prototype uses hydrogel fibers made from biomass-derived material. Images courtesy of The University of Texas at Austin
Hydrogel fibers move moisture through the fabric
Inside the water collection jacket, the fabric works through both transport and absorption. THE researchers at UT Austin designed a pathway that transports water from vapor to air to liquid on the fiber surface, then to the fabric system, which allows the material to operate at the scale of a wearable piece rather than remaining a small lab sample.
In tests, the jacket produced between 400 and 900 milliliters of potable water per day, about 14 to 30 ounces, depending on humidity levels. Compared to conventional water harvesting materials, the fabric showed a threefold to tenfold improvement in scale, indicating the importance of fiber structure and movement within the fabric.
fabric absorbs moisture and directs it to detachable harvesting units
from jacket pocket to outdoor gear
The prototype jacket is still a subject of research, but its form gives the water collection technology a direct design language. A black jacket fitted with a soft woven material suggests how the water collection could be carried in a front pocket, sewn into a backpack or incorporated into the surface of a tent. The system adds a second function to the gear people already wear or pack, especially in places where faucets, hoses and carry-on bottles run low.
The team sees future uses in hiking, camping, remote fieldwork, disaster response and water-scarce areas with limited infrastructure. Clothes are just the beginning. Backpacks, shelters, and outdoor gear could become distributed moisture collection surfaces, turning soft goods into small-scale water systems that travel with the person using them.
Each jacket can collect 400 to 900 milliliters of water per day
a broader study in air and water
The jacket comes with a separate atmospheric water harvesting device from the same UT Austin research team, tested in New Mexico’s hot Chihuahuan Desert and Austin’s more humid conditions. This device captured 1.3 liters of pure water per day in both dry and semi-humid conditions, using the same broader concept of drawing moisture from the atmosphere and releasing it through heat.
At the heart of both studies is a simple change in scale and placement. Instead of asking water-harvesting devices to sit apart from the body or the landscape, researchers are testing how the technology can be worn, folded, transported and integrated into existing objects. In the jacket, the water collection becomes part of the fabric itself, held close to the body until the heat turns the absorbed air into something that can be shed.
project information:
research: The University of Texas at Austin
principal investigator: Yuanyuan ‘Alba’ Guo
location: Austin, Texas, USA
situation: research prototype
