Novel Peptides for Controlling Invasive Pest Ants

The R&D goal is to secure water from renewable sources for water stressed regions. The R&D is toincrease overall collection of water from fog by one order of magnitude compared to fog net watercollectors (FNC). FNC collects fog water micro-droplets by impact on a net matrix. Its watercollection efficiency WCE is <5%. The proposed approach is to increase WCE to 50%. The newprocess uses separation of the water micro-droplets from the air first then coalesce the separatedmicro-droplets to large drops to fall under their own weight. The separation is accomplished usingcentrifugal forces when fog-laden air passes through in a spiral flute. Coalescence of micro-dropletson the inner wall of the spiral flute produces big drops for collection. The processwill be observedand WCE quantified using high speed and high-resolution camera and humidity chamber. TheR&D will be conducted at the Water and Energy Nexus Center (WEX) of UCI. Spiral flutecoalescers will be designed 3D printed and tested in a lab fog environment. Variables for testingwill be four aerodynamic designs four fog liquid water contents four wind speeds and three micro- droplet mean diameters. WEX support letter has been secured. The R&D timeline is six months.Results will show WCE improvement and its impact on commercialization.