When I first saw a news article on ‘Dry Water,’ I was sure it was a joke (you know, just add water…). But I was wrong. The powdery substance known as dry water may be a greener, more efficient catalyst for the production of chemically manufactured commodities, provide a safer method to store and transport dangerous goods, and aid in the battle against global warming by absorbing large quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Dry water is, in fact, 95% water, but is a dry powder (it looks a bit like powder snow). Every grain of powder is a water droplet enclosed inside an adapted silica (sand) coating. The silica shell prevents the individual water droplets from amalgamating into a liquid form and the dry water particles bind chemically with gases to form hydrates (for example, dry water absorbs more than three times the carbon dioxide as uncombined water and silica in the same amount of time; hence its promise as an agent to battle global warming).

Dry water was first discovered in 1968 —for potential use in cosmetics — and ‘rediscovered’ in 2006; since then, its list of possible applications has grown considerably.

Image source: American Chemical Society