In this work, we demonstrate a 3-dimensional graphene oxide (3D GO) stalk that operates near the capillary wicking limit to achieve an evaporation flux of 34.7 kg m −2 h −1 under 1 sun conditions (1 kW/m 2 ). This flux represents nearly a 100 times enhancement over a conventional solar evaporation pond. Interfacial solar evaporation traditionally uses 2D evaporators to vaporize water using sunlight, but their low evaporative water flux limits their practical applicability for desalination. Some recent studies using 3D evaporators demonstrate potential for more efficient water transfer, but the flux improvement has been marginal because of a low evaporation area index (EAI), which is defined as the ratio of the total evaporative surface area to the projected ground area. By using a 3D GO stalk with an ultrahigh EAI of 70, we achieved nearly a 20-fold enhancement over a 2D GO evaporator. The 3D GO stalk also exhibited additional advantages including omnidirectional sunlight utilization, a high evaporation flux under dark conditions from more efficient utilization of ambient heating, a dramatic increase of the evaporation rate by introducing wind, and scaling resistance in evaporating brines with a salt content of up to 17.5 wt %. This performance makes the 3D GO stalk well suited for the development of a low-cost, reduced footprint technology for zero liquid discharge in brine management applications.

Velocity data were obtained from sonic anemometer measurements within an east-west-running street canyon located in the urban core of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, during the Joint Urban 2003 field campaign. These data were used to explore the directional dependence of the mean flow and turbulence within a real-world street canyon. The along-canyon vortex that is a key characteristic of idealized street canyon studies was not evident in the mean wind data, although the sensor placement was not optimized for the detection of such structures. Instead, surface wind measurements imply that regions of horizontal convergence and divergence exist within the canopy, which are likely caused by taller buildings diverting the winds aloft down into the canopy. The details of these processes appear to be dependent on relatively small perturbations in the prevailing wind direction. Turbulence intensities within the canyon interior appeared to have more dependence on prevailing wind direction than they did in the intersections. Turbulence in the intersections tended to be higher than was observed in the canyon interior. This behavior implies that there are some fundamental differences between the flow structure found in North American-style cities where building heights are typically heterogeneous and that found in European-style cities, which generally have more homogeneous building heights. It is hypothesized that the greater three-dimensionality caused by the heterogeneous building heights increases the ventilation of the urban canopy through mean advective transport as well as enhanced turbulence.

Velocity data were obtained within Park Avenue in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, using three-dimensional sonic anemometers under unstable atmospheric conditions. These data are used to produce velocity spectra, cospectra, and weighted joint probability density functions at various heights and horizontal locations in the street canyon. This analysis has helped to describe a number of physically interesting urban flow phenomena. Previous research has shown that the ratio of Reynolds shear stresses to normal stresses is typically much smaller deep within the canopy than those ratios found at the top of canopy and in the roughness sublayer. The turbulence in this region exhibits significant contributions to all four quadrants of a weighted joint-probability density function of horizontal and vertical velocity fluctuations, yielding the characteristic small Reynolds shear stresses in the flow. The velocity cospectra measured at the base of the canopy show evidence of discrete frequency bands of both positive and negative correlation that yield a small correlation, as indicated by the Reynolds shear stresses. Two major peaks were often observed in the spectra and cospectra: a low-frequency peak that appears to be associated with vortex shedding off the buildings and a midfrequency peak generally associated with canyon geometry. The low-frequency peak was found to produce a countergradient contribution to the along-wind vertical velocity covariance. Standard spectral tests for local isotropy indicate that isotropic conditions occur at different frequencies depending on spatial location, demonstrating the need to be thorough when testing for local isotropy with the urban canopy.