Engineers find the hydrogel polyethylene glycol (PEG) doubles its water absorption as temperatures climb from 25 to 50 C, and could be useful for passive cooling or water harvesting in warm climates.

The gel material is cheap to make, and a single kilogram can produce liters of water in seemingly dry conditions. Reading time 4 minutes As the world becomes increasingly hot, fresh and clean water is ...

Plants may have no muscles, but they can grow upwards against the strain of gravity and their roots can even shift soil and rocks – because their cells can absorb water to form strong structures. Now ...

Glass isn’t usually our first choice for cleaning up household messes, but a company called Absorbent Materials thinks that a new kind of “swelling glass” – glass that swells up like a sponge – could ...

The vast majority of absorbent materials will lose their ability to retain water as temperatures rise. This is why our skin starts to sweat and why plants dry out in the heat. Even materials that are ...