Great Seminar - Dew Water Harvesting

I very much enjoyed the following seminar at MIT that was held yesterday and sponsored by Prof. Kripa Varanasi:

Dew Water Harvesting

The speaker:

Prof. Daniel Beysens,
CEA-Grenoble and ESPSI Paris Tech (France)
President, OPUR, International Organization for Dew Utilization

Some of the interesting ideas:

-- A typical structure that looks like a cone is preferred (it is best to have an angle on the surface).

-- Rain and dew water are different in several respects.

-- The purity of dew water is very good.

-- New surfaces produced will likely improve the efficiency of gathering dew water via spatial control of nucleation.

-- When water drops coalesce on a surface (smaller drops combine into larger drops) only a max. of 55% of the surface area is covered.

-- Some research involves estimating the max. amount of dew water available for an entire country.

These are just a few of the points covered in the seminar. I have some ideas for applications beyond the dew water harvesting process.