A tropical fruit tree that gets big and cannot stand freezing temperatures. Likes sandy well drained soil and strong sunlight. Does best in moderate humidity rather than rain forest conditions.
Apply Israeli drip irrigation to the roots to make the best use of the limited water. Water vapor originating from transpiration could be scavenged with a hydrophilic variant of Metal-organic-frameworks (MOF’s) within the confines of a greenhouse structure. These compounds possess an affinity sufficient to capture water vapor in desert aridity conditions—10% humidity.
1 kg of an aluminum-based MOF called MOF-303 needs just 3 to 10 min to bring in .4 kg of water at 20–40% relative humidity. As tested in Arizona, the material adsorbed .2 kg water from desert air, recovered using only solar energy and natural cooling processes. Concentrated solar heating can be used to drive the regeneration process for the MOF in a commercial application.
The possibility is open to apply adsorption materials to distillation of seawater by a flash vaporization process. In a device resembling a water based heat pipe, vapor adsorption would lower the internal pressure, resulting in a lower temperature boiling point of the source water. Regeneration of the MOF desiccant would ensure maintenance of the conditions needed to drive the process.
A new MOF in the dispersed form of hydrogel beads, directly adsorbs dissolved solids from seawater under condition of total darkness, within thirty minutes. Application of sunlight to the saturated MOF releases the adsorbed ions within a four minute regeneration period.
Each kilogram of active material undergoing a 30 minute adsorption period followed by a 4 minute regeneration period, continuously cycled over 24 hours, will yield 134 kg of potable water.