Could water pulled from the desert air help Southern Nevada confront its water challenges — and concerns about the growing demand from data centers? That is the goal behind a developing technology from WAVR Technologies, a Las Vegas startup commercializing atmospheric water-harvesting technology developed at UNLV.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) has been researching an innovative new approach to atmospheric water harvesting with improved water collection rates in arid environments.

Las Vegas-based WAVR Technologies can actually turn air into water. The deep tech startup that spun out of UNLV is commercializing atmospheric water harvesting systems that extract water directly from the air — even in desert environments at humidity levels as low as 10 percent.

The arid desert landscape of Death Valley is not the obvious place to find water. Yet it’s here, in one of the planet’s hottest and driest places, that Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers decided to test new technology to pull drinking water from an unconventional source: the air.

The global water system is showing its fragility, and water resilience is fast becoming a defining challenge for economies and investors. UN-Water estimates two-thirds of the world’s population faces shortages for at least a month each year. Analysis by CDP warns that companies could face $225 billion in costs from water-related risks in the short term, while as much as $2.5 trillion in corporate revenue is at risk if water scarcity disrupts supply chains and markets.

It might sound like science fiction, but for one startup in the valley, atmospheric water harvesting is reality. In the desert valley of Las Vegas, where water is as precious as gold, a team of researchers at WAVR is working to turn the air we breathe into the water we drink.

Those who have taken a road trip through the Southwest know that it is a very unique desert region, scattered with extraordinary canyons and lofty plateaus. As with any arid region, rainfall is scarce and temperatures are sky-high, making droughts inevitable. Thankfully, a bio-inspired film has been engineered by innovative minds, which pulls gallons of water per day by ‘drinking’ air like plants.

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