3 ms·

Can they work the other way - could you build a solid state dehumidifier with these?

• ericflo 10y ago
  They mentioned harvesting water from the air in the article, so yes.
• derefr 10y ago
  Activated charcoal is already a pretty good dehumidifier; this just seems to take the adsorptive properties of high-surface-area carbon one step further by giving the water an easy path "out" once it's adhered and amassed, keeping the carbon from getting "used up." I wonder if a similar thing could be done with silicon nanorods, given the similarity between activated charcoal and silica gel. "Silicon nano rods" sounds a lot like asbestos—and apparently asbestos is adsorptive, just not of water—but asbestos is micro-scale at best. Meanwhile, SiO2 nanotubes apparently exist[1], but don't show any particular adsorptive properties. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_nanotube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_nanotube