Study on the change of fog-harvesting mechanism by mesh geometry

Abstract

Fog-harvesting is one of breakthrough technologies to solve water shortage problems in arid regions relatively close to the ocean and prevent a loss of industrial water in the factory. In the present work, the effect of the mesh geometry on the fog-harvesting performance is studied systematically changing the hole size and shade coefficient by the use of 3D printer. By designing the hole size in comparison to capillary length for a fixed shade coefficient, the clogging effect on the fog-harvesting performance is studied independently of the effect of the shade coefficient. From the experiment, the clogging is found to increase fog-harvesting efficiency, unlike the conventional belief. And the fog-harvesting efficiency is found to be linearly proportional to the shade coefficient when there is no clogging.