Soil water harvest inspired by desert horned lizards, Phrynosoma platyrhinos
Seungjoo Lee, Junhee Choi, Wonseok Kim, Sohyun Jung, Sung Jae Kim, Wonjung Kim, Ho-Young Kim · 2026
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Description
Seungjoo Lee and co-authors draw engineering lessons from desert horned lizards in a 2026 study. The lizard Phrynosoma platyrhinos gathers water through tiny channels in its skin, but how that water reaches the mouth was a long standing puzzle. The team studied jaw motion and the flow physics behind it.
Slow jaw opening paired with fast closing acts as a capillary pump that moves skin water toward the mouth. Guided by that motion, the team built a system that pulls water from damp soil and, at the same time, removes harmful heavy metals from it. The design needs little energy and suits dry regions where clean water is scarce.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Seungjoo Lee, Junhee Choi, Wonseok Kim, Sohyun Jung, Sung Jae Kim, Wonjung Kim, Ho-Young Kim |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 34851 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |