LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — As Southern Nevada continues its efforts on water conservation, UNLV is hoping to create a solution to Southern Nevada’s water shortage with its newest device to harvest atmospheric water vapor.

While Jeremy Cho, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering at UNLV is not the first to conduct atmospheric water harvesting, he specifically wanted to target areas like Las Vegas with low humidity where we need this technology the most.

“It still blows my mind that this is possible, this doesn’t seem real but it seems like science fiction and it is like science fiction,” Cho remarked. “We like to reference Star Wars a lot because the Skywalkers were moisture farmers and here we are doing it in the desert of Southern Nevada. A lot of people pose the question, well aren’t we taking the water out of the air and isn’t that going to affect the environment? While it’s true we are taking water out of the air, you have to realize that we are net emitters of water because of evaporative cooling towers and it dumps a lot of water vapor in the atmosphere. Irrigation also leads to a lot of evaporative losses so in a lot of ways, we are trying to move towards net zero evaporation.”

Cho has teamed up with Rich Sloan to co-found WAVR Technologies, UNLV’s newest startup at the engineering school focusing on sustainable water practices.

“Sustainability is a top priority for us and of course we are a water company focused on water but we also want to leverage renewable energy like solar to power this process,” Sloan said. “So we can not be dependent on the grid and not dependent on Lake Mead.”

So how does the device work?

“Water is pulled even from this very arid desert air in the first 30 feet of the atmosphere. Here in Clark County, there is enough water to replace 100% of the water demand of this region,” Sloan explained. “As the air passes through this device, it is captured, we distill the salty desiccant water and the result is pure distilled water.”

Sloan said even in this type of climate, their device can pull substantial water in humidity as low as 10%.

“Ultimately whatever we do can’t be a fun little science experiment, it has to be meaningful and something impactful for the community and that means we have to deploy this on a large scale and that means it has to be affordable too,” Cho added.

They are launching this device with several businesses top of mind, including a Fortune 50 beverage company, along with a medical diagnostic company for in-home kidney dialysis which requires distilled water.

“We’re working with the UNLV campus and the president’s vision to make the campus water neutral and so replacing irrigation water with atmospherically sourced water,” Sloan said.

The goal is to eventually ensure the average customer can get their hands on a device like this in the future.

“So solving the problem of making this very affordable, making this very energy efficient, that’s a real scientific and engineering challenge and I am excited to continue that work because there’s a lot of research to be done,” Cho said.

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