Experimental study of folded metal mesh for efficient fog harvesting.

Abstract

Fog harvesting is one of the proposed solutions to resolve the water shortage. A variety of fog collecting elements (FCEs), including woven metal meshes, were implemented in previous investigations. However, the low collection efficiency of woven metal meshes, particularly under low wind velocity conditions, is one of their drawbacks. Factors including wind velocity, liquid water content (LWC), relative humidity, and ambient temperature highly affect the amount of collected water. The present study systematically examines the collection efficiency and factors that affect different conventional flat woven metal meshes. To improve their low collection efficiency, a folded mesh configuration inspired by Licuala tree leaves in three vertex angles ([Formula: see text]) is proposed and examined in two different velocities. The aerodynamic efficiency of folded meshes was experimentally determined to substantiate the increase in collection efficiency. The findings indicate that utilizing folded mesh can enhance collection efficiency by enhancing aerodynamic efficiency. The maximum observed collection efficiency in our study is 19.6%, demonstrating an enhancement of over 100% compared to the flat mesh. This study shows that utilizing folded mesh has the potential to address the issue of low collection efficiency found in traditional metal meshes in a cost-effective way.