Deep Radiative Cooling Passive Dew Collection

Abstract

We show how to overcome almost every major limitation in passive dew collection including: parasitic heating, parasitic evaporation, uncontrolled wind conditions, and performing dew collection 24 hours per day at nearly arbitrary relative humidity. We incorporate an ideal selective emitter in a simple thermal-equilibrium dew collection model that relies on an important physical insight -- that the roles of the radiative emitter and dew collector should be decoupled to achieve optimal dew harvesting. Previous models of passive dew collection strongly coupled those roles leading to nonideal theoretical limits. Our model necessitates deep radiative cooling (i.e., radiative cooling very far below ambient temperature) and that all forms of conductive and convective heating of the emitter have been eliminated. We further propose and tested a passive, self-regulating, gravity-fed airflow design that eliminates uncontrollable wind conditions or externally-driven airflow systems. Under somewhat realistic atmospheric scenarios, the theory predicts in excess of 80 grams/m$^2$/hour and 1.5 L/m$^2$/day which greatly exceeds the current theoretical limits of 0.7 L/m$^2$/day. We discuss how this can be further improved. We tested the validity of the equilibrium model and the gravity-fed airflow using a laboratory experiment that replicated the radiative emitter/dew collector system with the hot and cold side of a well-calibrated thermo-electric cooler. These ideas not only point to improved dew collection yields, but that dew can be collected 24 hours per day even at low relative humidity.