1. Atmospheric Water Generator Technologies

The rapid increase in the global population and the reckless behavior of depleting potable drinking water have accumulated into a colossal crisis in previous decades. Some four billion people (i.e., two-thirds of the global population) worldwide face low-to-high water stress. Ensuring access to safe drinking water remains a universal challenge and is now formally recognized as an international development priority by the United Nations framework. In this connection, along with other parallel technologies, Atmospheric Water Harvesting (AWH) is emerging as an effective methods means to overcome the water scarcity in arid regions, especially inland areas lacking liquid water sources. And, Beyond the conventional system engineering that improves the water yield, novel moisture-harvesting materials provide new aspects to promote the AWH technology—benefiting from their high tunability and processability. Innovative material and structural designs at micro/and nanoscale facilitate the water harvesters with desirable features; such as high-water uptake, facile water collection, and long-term recyclability, thus, boosting the rapid development of next-generation atmospheric water generators. In principle, AWH technologies could be classified into three categories; condensation, sorption, and hybrid. This chapter summarizes the water harvesting technologies from perspectives of surface design, material choice, test setups, performance analysis, and significant findings.