Antitangling and manufacturable Fog Harps for high‐efficiency water harvesting

Abstract

Abstract Fog Harps harvest substantially more water than conventional mesh‐based harvesters. However, to date, all large‐scale Fog Harps have been impractically hand‐wound at low wire tensions and suffer from elastocapillary wire tangling. Here, we develop large‐scale and high‐tension Fog Harps that are manufacturable and antitangling. These Fog Harps retain the record‐setting fog harvesting efficiency (η≈17%) of their optimized scale‐model counterparts, while uniquely enabling practical real‐life implementation. Manufacturability was achieved by adapting the industrial process for making harp screens, a pre‐existing technology used for screening solid materials. The critical tension required to minimize wire tangling was rationalized by an improved elastocapillary tangling model.