Demonstrated only at centimetre lab scale over days — deployment-scale, multi-year durability is unproven
#00061
The evidence is a 9 cm² panel run for ~9 hours outdoors and a lab unit run for 7 days. Real deployment needs square-metre panels surviving years of seawater: aluminium corrosion, biofouling, laser-texture wear, mechanical robustness, and field salt-harvesting are all untested.
Parent issue
#00056 Passive solar-thermal interfacial crystallizer using laser-textured superwicking black metal
Sustainable Development Goals
Location
Description
The problem
Between a centimetre-scale, week-long laboratory result and a deployable unit lies the gap that decides whether this ever helps anyone. Specific unknowns:
- Corrosion & fouling: thin aluminium in continuous seawater contact over months/years; biofouling of the active surface in real (not filtered lab) conditions.
- Texture longevity: does the femtosecond-laser micro/nanostructure degrade, abrade, or scale up over time?
- Manufacturing & cost at area: femtosecond-laser texturing is described as scalable, but cost per m² at deployment volume is not established.
- Mechanical robustness & condensate capture: the rooftop test used a hemispherical dome to condense and collect vapour; ruggedising that for a coastal village is its own engineering task.
- Field salt harvesting: removing and handling accumulated solids at scale, by non-specialists, without contaminating the active area.
What resolution requires
A square-metre-class prototype operating for months in a real coastal setting, with measured degradation, a maintenance protocol a non-specialist can follow, and a cost-per-litre-over-lifetime figure comparable against trucking water or a small RO unit.
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