’Magical material’: How Europe’s drought-struck islands could soon harvest water from dry air

When wells on his Ibiza property ran dry, Hashem Arouzi experienced Europe’s water crisis first hand. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The British entrepreneur set about to find a solution – not only for himself, but for the thousands of island-dwellers whose water supplies are dwindling due to drought, over-extraction and seawater intrusion. “In Ibiza alone, there are more than 15,000 properties that are not connected to the water supply, and need to secure their own water,” says Arouzi. “The wells that have previously supplied them are running dry.” Water deliveries by truck offer temporary reprieve but now even the reservoirs that supply them are running dry. Desalination plants are increasingly coming to the rescue of mains-connected properties but off-grid homes are being left behind. “This reflects a global challenge: around the world there are millions of homes that are off-grid and water-stressed – in areas where existing methods of water harvesting would struggle with arid conditions,” says Arouzi. Machines that harvest drinking water from the air – even in hot and dry climates – could be a life-saving solution. Making use of Nobel-winning water harvesting tech As soon as next year, off-grid villas and hotels in the Mediterranean and Balearics could be bolstering their water supplies with tech that achieves just this. Unveiled today (30 July) in Barcelona, the ARK is a plug-and-play device by Arouzi’s climate tech company Ahbstra that the company claims is capable of harvesting up to 500 litres of water a day from the air. Its secret weapon? Breakthrough molecular chemistry that was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2025. Metal-Organic Frameworks, or MOFs, feature an innovative molecular structure engineered to have a huge internal surface area – the equivalent of a whole football pitch in one gram of material. The structures are the result of the decades-long work of three scientists: Susumu Kitagawa from Kyoto University in Japan, Richard Robson from the University of Melbourne in Australia, and Omar M. Yaghi from the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States. How does MOF-based water harvesting work? With large cavities in which molecules can flow in and out, MOFs can be used to separate pollutants from water and extract carbon dioxide or water from the air. Conventional atmospheric water generators (AWGs) work like dehumidifiers, cooling air down to its dew point to create water condensation. At low humidity, the dew point drops, often making it unviable to cool the air sufficiently. MOFs on the other hand are adsorbents, not condensers, meaning they can hold molecules of gas or liquid on their surface. This allows them to physically bind water vapour molecules directly out of low-humidity air, without the need for energy-intensive deep cooling. A modest amount of heat is needed to release the captured water as liquid. Yaghi's own company, Atoco, unveiled the world's first MOF-based water harvester in February 2026, with orders opening later this year. Capable of producing up to 1,000 litres a day using only ambient thermal energy, the units – roughly the size of a shipping container – could be a lifeline for disaster hit communities, as well as providing resource-hungry data centres with water generated using waste heat. How a ‘magic material’ could ease off-grid water stress “For years, MOFs have been a ‘magic material’ on the cusp of delivering vital results for the environment, from water harvesting to carbon capture,” says Arouzi. But their high energy requirements previously made their use unviable at scale. Ahbstra says it addresses this with its patented Suspended Particle Reactor, which cycles air through MOF granules in a fluidised state to maximise their performance. Priced at £150,000 (around €175,000), the company's units still aren’t cheap – but they could be invaluable for properties that are at risk of being devalued or abandoned due to a lack of water security, the developers say. Water from the ARK can be used to replenish wells and cisterns, or be sent directly to a property’s mains water system. Both Ahbstra and Atoco are currently developing systems for smaller water volumes, too. Part of a whole-system approach to water stress This summer, successive heatwaves and droughts have subjected many southern European countries to severe water shortages, with around 30 per cent of people facing permanent water stress across the region, according to the European Environment Agency. “It’s clear that weather and rainfall patterns are changing, leading to more extreme and prolonged drought conditions in many places,” says Richard Perkin, CTO of Ahbstra. “Tackling this requires a whole-system approach, from water efficiency to recycling and better infrastructure.” But if dams or wells are dry, they can only be refilled when it rains in the right place, no matter how responsibly the water is managed. “This is why atmospheric water harvesting is a necessary part of the response,” he says. Independent, peer-reviewed data on the ARK’s real-world performance and durability is not yet available.