Jackets keep you warm. And stylish! Now they can quench your thirst?
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Clean water is essential. Yet two-thirds of the world experiences water scarcity.
Enter Chuxin Lei and team at UT Austin. They developed a porous fiber that pulls water from the air. The water-attracting fibers condense water vapor through their internal pores. When the fibers are heated, water can be collected and stored.
The team wove these fibers into breathable, wearable jackets! The result?
In dry environments, the jackets collected enough water to fill a water bottle in a day.
If you find yourself in the desert, don’t fall for the mirages. Just check the flask in your jacket.
Lei, C., Zhang, Y., He, L., Wang, Y., Wu, J., Guan, W., Zhao, Y., Fu, Q., Johnston, K. P., Wu, K., & Yu, G. (2026). Scalable hierarchical textile fibers toward personalized wearable atmospheric water harvesting. Science Advances. https://doi.org/aed9949