Couldn't powdered water be used to combat drought?

[bump]

I can see one possible use for this powdered water in case of drought.

What I’m imagining is some sort of building like a grain elevator filled with this stuff. The advantage would be that presumably, you could store it long-term without the problems of storing liquid water (algae, evaporation, etc…) and then feed it through some sort of mechanism to remove the water when needed.

This might be useful in places where water supplies are unreliable, and possibly where liquid water would be hard to store.

[davidm]

The article linked to in the OP lists several possible uses (none of which involve simply storing and transporting water).

One of the possible uses highlighted in the article is the absorption and storage of CO2 to help fight global warming.

Of course, the patent for dry water: Dry water - The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army
says that manufacturing it requires a temperature of 1100° C, so I’m not so sure about the cost benefit ratio in removing carbon from the atmosphere.

[Mangetout]

@bump

I can see one possible use for this powdered water in case of drought.

What I’m imagining is some sort of building like a grain elevator filled with this stuff. The advantage would be that presumably, you could store it long-term without the problems of storing liquid water (algae, evaporation, etc…) and then feed it through some sort of mechanism to remove the water when needed.

This might be useful in places where water supplies are unreliable, and possibly where liquid water would be hard to store.

Except you can do that with a water tank. The expense and difficulty of packaging the water into microspheres can’t be less than the expense and difficulty of just building a decent waterproof tank.

This does indeed look like a solution searching for a problem. The most economical way of shipping water is going to be putting it in the largest containers that can reasonably be handled - because the water : packaging ratio will thus be highest.

[Leo_Bloom]

@ZenBeam

Well, that’s kind of what the article is about. They’re looking at properties of it, to see what they might use it for. The most obvious, perhaps, is the one mentioned at the end. Two powders, each with a different substance dissolved in the water. The powders can be mixed, and the two substances won’t mix until you squeeze or stir the powder mixture…

Easier processing of medicines, encapsulation?

[TriPolar]

If you can make powdered vermouth, you could set a new standard for the dry martini.