Drought and water scarcity are endemic to the world and are further aggravated in the present era of climate change. Since water underpins human health, its wide-spread shortage underscores the potential for developing water generation technologies based on renewable energy. The book provides a comprehensive insight into the historical importance of sustainable water management practices, from ancient developments on technologies to modern approaches. The development of effective technologies that maximize water production per unit investment of energy requires knowledge of principles of thermodynamics, phase change, and interfacial phenomena, whereas piloting prototypes of water harvesting devices on the field requires an appreciation of end-user cost versus benefits. This book covers several aspects immersing the reader from first principles to products that are developed on scale. Specifically, it addresses the water theme of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (2024). This book is a useful resource for scientists and engineers involved in designing and building sustainable technologies for water generation, and for postgraduate researchers who intend to analyze and improve existing technologies while conceiving novel devices.

Autorentext

Ramesh Narayanaswamy is currently a Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the School of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at Curtin University, Australia. His teaching and research in fluid mechanics and heat transfer include natural convection and radiation, jet impingement, droplet evaporation, and biofluid mechanics. He has expertise in both computational and experimental methodologies of research, including optical methods in fluid flow and heat transfer. He has supervised several PhD students supported through research grants and scholarships. His current research focuses on sustainable water generation methods supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals, while building research partnerships to support life on this planet.

Malay K. Das began his academic career in 2008 and is currently a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. He has undertaken multiple research projects in the fields of gas hydrate, transport via porous media, and electrochemical energy conversion. He has also mentored a number of graduate students. He co-authored a textbook on thermal system design and edited a monograph on transport in porous media. His current research includes data-driven thermofluid dynamics, marine hydrates, and carbon dioxide sequestration.

K. Muralidhar is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, where he started his career in 1987. He has guided quite a few doctoral students and has completed funded research projects in the areas of wake dynamics, transport in porous media, crystal growth, biomedical flows, and clean water technologies. He has coordinated a national initiative on solar hydrogen generation for DST, a multi-institutional project on CFD code development on unstructured grids for DAE, and an initiative on futuristic mechanics with IGCAR Kalpakkam. With multiple monographs on transport in porous media, droplet dynamics and dropwise condensation, and schlieren and shadowgraph imaging, he also serves as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Flow Visualization and Image Processing. His present work relates to moisture condensation over mesh-like surfaces and blood rheology. He is also involved in an institute initiative to develop a blood pump for the human heart. He is an elected Fellow of the American Society of Thermal and Fluid Engineers, the Indian National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Sciences, India.