Enhancement of Water Productivity and Energy Efficiency in Sorption-based Atmospheric Water Harvesting Systems: From Material, Component to System Level

To address the increasingly serious water scarcity across the world, sorption-based atmospheric water harvesting (SAWH) continues to attract attention among various water production methods, due to it being less dependent on climatic and geographical conditions. Water productivity and energy efficiency are the two most important evaluation indicators. Therefore, this review aims to comprehensively and systematically summarize and discuss the water productivity and energy efficiency enhancement methods for SAWH systems based on three levels, from material to component to system. First, the material level covers the characteristics, categories, and mechanisms of different sorbents. Second, the component level focuses on the sorbent bed, regeneration energy, and condenser. Third, the system level encompasses the system design, operation, and synergetic effect generation with other mechanisms. Specifically, the key and promising improvement methods are: synthesizing composite sorbents with high water uptake, fast sorption kinetics, and low regeneration energy (material level); improving thermal insulation between the sorbent bed and condenser, utilizing renewable energy or electrical heating for desorption and multistage design (component level); achieving continuous system operation with a desired number of sorbent beds or rotational structure, and integrating with Peltier cooling or passive radiative cooling technologies (system level). In addition, applications and challenges of SAWH systems are explored, followed by potential outlooks and future perspectives. Overall, it is expected that this review article can provide promising directions and guidelines for the design and operation of SAWH systems with the aim of achieving high water productivity and energy efficiency.