A low-cost, high-efficiency, new generation material for fog harvesting fumed silica-doped polypropylene

Abstract

Abstract This study describes the development of a fog collector material for fog harvesting. Polypropylene (PP) doped with fumed silica (0–2%) was punctured at equal intervals and exposed to fog produced by a humidifier. The amount of water harvested by each sample was measured using an ultrasonic fogger. Polypropylene doped with 1% fumed silica was most effective at harvesting water, and collected almost 19–20 times more water than pure polypropylene. This improvement is due to the surface tension, which decreased from 16.754 mN/m (pure PP) to 13.512 and 9.992 mN/m (0.5% and 1% fumed silica, respectively). On the other hand, when fumed silica doping exceeded 1%, this increased the polymer’s surface tension, measured as 20.6 and 38.1 mN/m for 1.5 and 2% fumed silica doping. We therefore propose fog harvesting using 1% fumed silica-doped polypropylene as a low-cost method for collecting clean water in arid regions.