LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — 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.
WATCH: Channel 13 gets a tour of the WAVR Lab
"After three years, we successfully developed the fundamental demonstration of our technology," explained WAVR's Chief Technology Officer Yiwei Gao, PhD.
The company was officially launched in 2024 from inside the walls of UNLV laboratory, and a year later, prototypes are made possible with a specialized 3D printer.
"This kind of squishy-like substance here is our hydrogel membrane," said Emilie Luong, WAVR technician.
Luong explained that the hydrogel membrane is highly water absorbent, naturally attracting water from the atmosphere. The researchers took inspiration from tree frogs that absorb water from the air.
"Think of like a contact lens or like any rice," Luong said.
Today, these researchers are testing and tweaking their technology to scale their work and develop it for the real world.
They're one step closer to bringing that goal to fruition, thanks to some new funding.
"It works in the lab. Now they want to scale and show that they can do it with bigger units and bigger volumes of water," said Len Jessup, former UNLV president and new founder of Desert Forge Ventures.
Jessup is working to secure seed funding — $4 million so far and growing from private donors, but also through a partnership with Nevada’s State-Sponsored Venture Capital Program, Battle Born Venture, which is overseen by the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development.
In a statement, WAVR's CEO Rich Sloan said the team plans to put this money to work right away.
"WAVR intends to use the new funding to A) grow its R&D team, B) to advance its pilot projects that are of a larger scale (pilots capable of generating 100s and eventually thousands of gallons/day), C) create production-ready final designs, and D) to build up its patent portfolio in the US and internationally."
Sloan said the company also plans to develop uses for the tech to produce drinking water within the next decade, and that the assembly line will remain in Las Vegas.
According to Len Jessup, Desert Forge Ventures plans to continue to push for new business development in the valley.
"The startup ecosystem in Las Vegas, believe it or not, has been ranked in the top 5 in the country recently. It's a hot startup ecosystem," Jessup said.
Jessup said his goal is to diversify Las Vegas's economy, while the WAVR team looks to answer the question: Could Southern Nevada diversify its water supply?
"There's not enough coming out of the river. There's not enough in the aquifers underneath Las Vegas to sustain the growth that's happening here," Jessup said.
The team claims this hydrogel membrane could one day source water from the skies on a large scale.
"The water scarcity is always a big problem to everyone living in this town. So, we will say like, as the scientist, as the engineer, what can we do to make some contribution to solve the issue?" Gao said.
Similar technology has also been developed by other research universities and has been called an "inevitable path of the future" in research papers.
"WAVR figured out a way to tap into that potential," Jessup said.
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