A structure known as a metal organic framework traps water vapor by night, then releases it when heated the next day. Christopher Intagliata reports.

一种金属有机框架（MOFs）材料可以在夜间捕捉水分子，然后在第二天被加热时释放出来。克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔报道。

撰文播音：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔（Christopher Intagliata）

翻译：邱燕宁

审校：潘磊

It's an idea straight out of Star Wars: suck the humidity from dry desert air, and turn it into drinking water.

这个想法来自《星球大战》：吸干沙漠空气中的湿气，并把它变成饮用水。

<<Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope: "What I really need is a droid who understands the binary language of moisture vaporators. Vaporators? Sir, my first job was programming binary load lifters—very similar to your vaporators in most respects.">>

《星球大战IV：新希望》:“我真正需要的是一个能够理解水分蒸发器二进制语言的机器人。蒸发器？先生，我的第一份工作是编程二进制负载升降机——在很多方面与您的蒸发器非常相似。”

Very similar to the vaporators in Star Wars's moisture farms, scientists have now used a box of gunmetal gray powder to pry moisture from the dry Arizona air by night…and deliver drinking water the next day. 

就像星球大战的水分农场里的蒸发器一样，科学家正在亚利桑那州使用了一盒灰绿色粉末，从夜间干燥的空气中捕捉水分，并在第二天放出饮用水。

The powder is consists of tiny structures called metal organic frameworks, which contain even tinier pores to grab water.

这种粉末是由叫做金属有机框架（MOF）的微小结构组成的，其中含有极小的气孔可以捕捉水分子。

"The water goes in and the first ones go in and make the pores more polar and so more water comes in."

“水分子能进入这个结构；而且一旦捕获第一个分子，孔隙内部的极性会变大，然后吸引更多的水分子进入。”

Omar Yaghi, a chemist at U.C. Berkeley.

Omar Yaghi，他是来自加州大学伯克利分校的化学家。

The powder-filled box is built inside yet another box. At night the larger box is left open, but when it's closed in the morning, it helps trap heat—and evaporated water—inside. The water then condenses inside the larger box and trickles down to be collected—no cooler or power source needed.

负载粉末的盒子被另一个盒子包裹。在夜间，大一点的盒子是开着的，但是在早上需要关上；这样能够保存里面的热量和水蒸气。然后水蒸气在大盒子里凝结，滴落下来被收集——并不需要冷却装置或电源。

The finding by Yaghi and colleagues is in the journal Science Advances. [Farhad Fathieh  et al., Practical water production from desert air]

Yaghi和同事的这一发现被发表在《Science Advances》杂志上。

It would take many truckloads of powder to sustain a community—every pound of the zirconium-based metal organic framework used here only squeezes three ounces of water from the air per day. But Yaghi is testing a much cheaper, more efficient aluminum-based powder. Which might just bring us a little closer to Tatooine. Technologically. 

要提供一个社区的用水量需要好几十卡车的粉末——研究使用的锆（Zr）基金属有机框架（MOFs）材料每天只能从空气中挤出三盎司的水。但Yaghi正在测试一种更便宜、更高效的铝基粉末。技术上也许会让我们更接近星战中的塔图因（Tatooine）。

—Christopher Intagliata