【精英翻譯】的部落格

Atmospheric harvesters will enable arid nations to drink from thin air－大氣收穫機可讓乾旱國家從空氣中獲取飲水

精英翻譯社轉自http://iservice.ltn.com.tw/Service/english/english.php?engno=1204228&day=2018-05-28

◎劉宜庭

Earth’s atmosphere contains an estimated 13 trillion liters of water vapor at any given time － that’s the equivalent to 10 percent of all of the planet’s available surface freshwater.

地球的大氣中，無時無刻都含有約13兆公升的水蒸氣，相當於地表上所有淡水資源的10%。

A newly developed sorbent has recently shown that it can harvest atmospheric moisture even when the relative humidity drops to around 10 percent. Under those conditions, that works out to around three liters of water for every million liters of air.

一款新開發的吸附劑近來顯示，即便相對濕度降至約10%，它也能從大氣中收穫水汽。在這種條件下，每100萬公升的空氣可產出約3公升的水。

Created by a collaborative team from MIT and UC Berkeley, this proof of concept device uses a metal-organic framework （MOFs）, a material invented in the 1990s by UC Berkeley chemistry professor Omar Yaghi. Depending on the metal and organic molecules used, chemists can control what gases will bind to the MOF and how strong those connections will be.

這款概念驗證裝置由美國麻省理工學院、加州大學柏克萊分校的協同團隊研發，使用柏克萊化學系教授奧馬．亞吉在1990年代發明的一種「金屬有機骨架（MOF）」材料。化學家利用金屬和有機分子，控制能與「金屬有機骨架」結合的氣體種類及其鍵結強度。

The device itself is a simple design with two main parts：the absorption layer （aka the MOF） and an enclosed, an air-cooled condenser. The backside of the MOF is painted black, to operate as a solar absorber.

該裝置本身可簡單分為兩個主要部分：吸收層（又稱MOF）和作為空氣冷凝器的封套。MOF的背面會塗成黑色，用來吸收太陽能。