Abstract
Atmospheric moisture constitutes an essentially inexhaustible global resource of fresh water, exceeding the total volume in the Earth’s rivers by a factor of six. However, traditional techniques for atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) rely on either sensible dew point cooling—which incurs prohibitive thermodynamic energy costs due to the latent heat of phase change combined with the cooling of inert atmospheric gases—or passive collection nets that are strictly limited by aerodynamic streamlines and the Stokes number for capturing macroscopic fog droplets.
The original ALLFROMAIR® defensive publication proposed direct capture of gas-phase water molecules via dielectrophoresis (DEP) in strong electric field gradients (∇|E|²). That description was constructed around a particulate model, where gas-phase molecules were assumed to behave as discrete dielectric spheres undergoing translational motion driven by the Maxwell stress tensor across macroscopic air gaps.
This addendum performs a full physical and mathematical deconstruction of that claim. It establishes that the mechanistic “particle model” is incorrect, and that the system must instead be understood and calculated through the lens of field theory, thermodynamic gradients and diffusion-limited mass transfer. Despite the corrected theoretical framing, the original hardware architecture of ALLFROMAIR® remains de facto functional—the correction lies in the explanatory mechanism, not in the design.
By integrating Boltzmann statistics, Fick’s laws of diffusion, Paschen’s law for dielectric breakdown and Modified Kelvin–Thomson thermodynamics (MKT), the entire process is reformulated. It is demonstrated that the electric field does not function as a mechanical “vacuum cleaner” for individual molecules, but as a potent thermodynamic sink that erases nucleation barriers and drives a continuous stream of vapor via molecular diffusion across fluid-mechanical boundary layers.
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Recommended Citation
Lius, Vesa Olavi, "ALLFROMAIR® Addendum No. 2 (v2): Field-Enhanced Atmospheric Condensation", Technical Disclosure Commons, (April 21, 2026)
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/9883