Experimental analysis on fog harvesting by means of bi- and three-dimensional meshes: a laboratory study

Nowadays the lack of reliable water sources has become a significant problem, particularly in dry regions. In this context, fog harvesting appears to be a very promising solution to address this issue. Therefore, in recent years, a new device named ‘fog water collector’, composed of a mesh and a supporting structure, has been introduced. So far, the most used mesh for this type of application has been the Raschel mesh, but various researches are trying to improve the efficiency of fog water collectors by investigating different types of meshes. This paper aims at studying the fog collection efficiency of some alternative meshes available on the market, differing in material, geometry, filament shape, and overall thickness, under controlled laboratory conditions. The results allowed to group the meshes into two sets, namely the two-dimensional ones, including the Raschel mesh, which showed an average collection efficiency in the range 1.6–3.1%, and the three-dimensional ones, with an average collection efficiency in the range 4.9–7.7%, thus emerging as the most efficient. Moreover, the best values for the shading coefficient resulted to be around 50–80%, while the optimal air permeability was in the range 5000–10000 L/(m2⋅s) under 80 Pa pressure difference.