{"id":272385,"date":"2026-06-13T15:17:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T19:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/13\/ut-austin-researchers-develop-a-jacket-that-pulls-drinkable-water-from-the-air\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T16:40:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T20:40:33","slug":"ut-austin-researchers-develop-a-jacket-that-pulls-drinkable-water-from-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/13\/ut-austin-researchers-develop-a-jacket-that-pulls-drinkable-water-from-the-air\/","title":{"rendered":"UT austin researchers develop a jacket that pulls drinkable water from the air"},"content":{"rendered":"

UT austin researchers develop a jacket that pulls drinkable water from the air<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.designboom.com\/technology\/ut-austin-jacket-drinkable-water-air-harvesting\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-13 15:17:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.designboom.com<\/a><\/p>\n

a jacket designed for water harvesting<\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin are experimenting with a prototype jacket capable of atmospheric water harvesting. Their piece gathers moisture directly from the air through a specially engineered textile, thus turning a familiar piece of outdoor clothing into a mobile water-collecting surface.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The project shifts a technology often imagined as a box, panel, or fixed sorbent bed into fabric. Developed by engineers at UT Austin\u2019s Cockrell School of Engineering, the jacket uses a biomass-derived hydrogel fiber that absorbs ambient moisture and moves it through the textile toward detachable harvesting units.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once removed, those units are placed inside a foldable collector and heated, producing drinkable water from the moisture held in the material.<\/p>\n

the prototype uses hydrogel fibers made from biomass derived material. images courtesy the University of Texas at Austin<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

hydrogel fibers move moisture through cloth<\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Inside the water harvesting jacket, the textile works through transport as much as absorption. The researchers<\/strong> at UT Austin designed a pathway that carries water from vapor in the air to liquid on the fiber surface, then into the fabric system, which allows the material to operate at the scale of a wearable piece instead of remaining a small laboratory sample.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In testing, the jacket produced between 400 and 900 milliliters of drinkable water per day, around 14 to 30 ounces, depending on humidity levels. Compared with conventional water-harvesting materials, the textile showed a three- to ten-fold improvement at scale, pointing to the importance of fiber structure and movement within the cloth.<\/p>\n

\"water
the textile absorbs moisture and directs it toward detachable harvesting units<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

from jacket pocket to outdoor gear<\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The prototype jacket is still a research object, but its form gives the water harvesting technology an immediate design language. A black jacket fitted with pale woven material suggests how…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UT austin researchers develop a jacket that pulls drinkable water from the air https:\/\/www.designboom.com\/technology\/ut-austin-jacket-drinkable-water-air-harvesting\/ Publish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":272386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.designboom.com\/twitterimages\/uploads\/2026\/06\/jacket-pulls-water-from-air-designboom-FB.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272385"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272387,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272385\/revisions\/272387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}