No electricity required.

Means this dehumidifier produces even less water than the standard powered dehumidifier.

Uses outside air.

Will breed even nastier shit in the water than one inside a building.

Might work better where it's more humid. Might bring humidity to more bearable levels if you have a lot of them?

But when it's really humid, there's usually much better ways of getting water.

Y'all, we're talking about condensate from a device specifically designed to capture water for drinking. We're not talking about drinking the water dripping from your AC. Ensuring this water is drinkable is remarkably simple.

Not only that, but Clostridium botulinum only grows in anaerobic environments, so it isn't even a remote concern in this case. That's why you don't hear about it much outside of canned food or instances where it's purposefully cultivated for medical applications.

Or is this a situation where you need at modern manufacturing facility to produce one?

Probably the second one:

The team also shaped the hydrogel into a dome-like origami array, like a sheet of bubble wrap. The unique structure increased surface area and maximized how much the material could swell so it would hold more water vapor. The team then sandwiched the gel between two glass panels roughly the size of a small window, both coated with a cooling chemical layer, and added tubing to collect the water.

Assuming I'm wrong, you'd still need a ton of those for a single person. They got approximately 5.5oz in one night from one panel in death valley, but a quick Google says you need about 32oz per hour in high heat. You'd need just under 6 panels/person/hour you need water, which takes away from the idea that this is portable or really usable for hiking when you'd need like 80+ of these things to get anywhere close to having enough water for one day.

These are called dehumidifiers and you should not drink the water that comes out of them.

The condensed water is pure, yes. But dehumidifiers almost instantly become a breeding ground for all kinds of nasty shit. Nasty shit that is now in your ‘pure’ water.

Edit: It's the same problem as the WaterSeer which is also a passive dehumidifier. This same idea comes up several times a year, yet you don't see them deployed in quantity anywhere. They simply don't work well. (The WaterSeer actually seems like a better design than what is in OP's article.)

These are called dehumidifiers and you should not drink the water that comes out of them.

The condensed water is pure, yes. But dehumidifiers almost instantly become a breeding ground for all kinds of nasty shit. Nasty shit that is now in your ‘pure’ water.

Edit: It's the same problem as the WaterSeer which is also a passive dehumidifier. This same idea comes up several times a year, yet you don't see them deployed in quantity anywhere. They simply don't work well. (The WaterSeer actually seems like a better design than what is in OP's article.)

Ooohhh another dehumidifier!

But no no no no, this time, THIS time, MIT is involved so it MUST be true, because MIT would never link it's mlname to yet another Sammy product, right?

OOOHH, And this device will even get water out of desert air, you say? Like like all the other water out of dry air products that were all such obvious scams that any 15yo could use highschool physics to explain it to you?.

Well call me sold, I'm all in in this one! By the way, I have this nice heat little bridge in my backyard, you'd LOVE it! Pay first, the. I'll show ya, promise!

And just to make it really really clear: no, I haven't read the article and yes, it's a scam, and how do I know? Basic physics and, you know, seeing these devices come by every 2-4 years like clockwork and every damn time some university is funding it or attaching their names to it for some reason. I don't even need to read the article at this point.

Here is a question: can universities please require that students have taken some basic physics courses before they allow them to start dumb scams like this?

Edit: come at me Lemmy, down vote all you want, I'm still right