A team of engineers from The University of Texas at Austin has won first place in the graduate category of the 2025 Collegiate Inventors Competition (CIC), one of the most prestigious awards for engineering students in the United States.
Weixin Guan and Yaxuan Zhao, graduate researchers with the Texas Materials Institute and the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering at UT’s Cockrell School of Engineering, were recognized for their innovative and cost-effective device, AirGel, which extracts drinking water from humidity in the air. Their invention also won the competition’s People’s Choice Award and received a USPTO Patent Acceleration Certificate from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
“AirGel provides a complementary solution to existing water processing systems,” said Zhao. “It can produce water using only air and sunlight, and it can deliver water directly to the point of need. This differs from a centralized system that might need to transport water a long distance, which can increase the cost and the energy demand. Since our system is portable, modular and only relies on solar energy, it can be used in many applications such as outdoor activities, for household or community needs, and even disaster relief.”
Guan and Zhao presented their invention on Oct. 16 to a panel of judges composed of National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees and officials from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The team is advised by Guihua Yu, the John J. McKetta Centennial Energy Chair in Engineering.
“It was an incredible honor to win first place and the People’s Choice Award,” said Guan. “It reflects recognition from leading inventors and innovation experts as well as the general public. That gives us tremendous confidence to push AirGel toward practical implementation in the future. It was also an honor to represent UT and bring a Texas-born invention from the Forty Acres to the national stage.”
“AirGel reflects the best of UT Austin’s engineering spirit, from discovery to impact, linking research with practical design to solve global problems,” added Yu.
Next, Guan and Zhao will work toward real-world applications and deployments of AirGel.
“We are currently working on further optimizing and iterating our system design to be more efficient, productive and more durable in real-world conditions,” said Guan. “After that, we hope to send AirGel to places globally that need water most, where we can further study their field performance and cost effectiveness to bring AirGel one step closer to practical implementation.”
The competition drew hundreds of students from colleges and universities across the United States, and only 23 students representing five undergraduate and five graduate teams were selected as finalists for the final in-person award presentations in Washington, D.C. A program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, the CIC is sponsored by the USPTO and celebrates the country’s most promising student inventors. Since its introduction in 1990, the CIC has featured more than 500 innovators and awarded more than $1 million in support to winning student teams. Being selected as a winner places UT among the top producers of student-led inventions in the U.S. this year.
