Bioinspired design of electrospun nanofiber based aerogel for efficient and cost-effective solar vapor generation

Liu, Ye; Liu, Huijie; Xiong, Jian; Li, Ailin; Wang, Rongwu; Wang, Liming; Qin, Xiaohong; Yu, Jianyong

doi:10.1016/j.cej.2021.131539

Cited by 63 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…other reported evaporators are shown in Figure 5J. [12,56,62,[64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71] The result reveals that our CB@SBS/cotton fabric Janus evaporator has both low cost and high performance.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…At present, solar-driven interfacial evaporation materials, including metal nanoparticles, [12,16] carbonbased materials, [17][18][19][20][21][22][23] and polymers, [24][25][26] are commonly used. Despite these designs on materials and structures that can promote the performance of solar-driven interfacial evaporation, the accumulation of salts has always hindered the practical application of this technology, especially in high salt concentration water.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Breath‐Figure Self‐Assembled Low‐Cost Janus Fabrics for Highly Efficient and Stable Solar Desalination

Tian

Zhang

et al. 2022

Adv Funct Materials

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110

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Solar‐driven interfacial evaporation materials for seawater desalination and wastewater treatment have attracted extensive research interest in recent years. Nevertheless, salt accumulation, costly materials, and complex preparation processes greatly hinder the practical application of solar steam generation. Herein, with low‐cost materials such as carbon black (CB), polystyrene‐b‐polybutadiene‐b‐polystyrene (SBS), and commercial cotton fabric, the CB@SBS/cotton fabric Janus evaporator is fabricated via a breath figure template (BFT) method for scalable, long‐term, and stable solar‐driven interfacial desalination. The BFT is a simple yet efficient self‐assembly method that endows the hydrophobic surface of CB@SBS/cotton fabric with a porous structure for high light absorption (≈95.5%) and steam escape. As a result, the CB@SBS/cotton fabric Janus evaporator can achieve a water evaporation rate of 1.37 kg m–2 h–1 and conversion efficiency of 91.3% even in a 3.5 wt% NaCl solution, as well as stably cycling over 15 times without salt accumulation (each cycle: 8 h for illumination and 16 h for rest). The work demonstrates an effective strategy for achieving high‐performance solar steam generation and superior salt rejection capability, which can be potentially utilized in seawater desalination, sterilization, and disinfection.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 70%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Breath‐Figure Self‐Assembled Low‐Cost Janus Fabrics for Highly Efficient and Stable Solar Desalination

Tian

Zhang

et al. 2022

Adv Funct Materials

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110

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“…With such properties, the fibrous aerogel comprising PAN nanofibers as a well substrate is demonstrated to show environmental stability (Figure 4C). With hierarchical pore structure cooperated with CNTs as solar absorber, the composite aerogel outperformed most nanofibrous membranes with a fast evaporation rate of 2.13 kg m −2 h −1 and high solarvapor conversion efficiency of 94.5% under one-sun (Liu et al, 2022). With chemical treatment or electrospinning method, the highperformance polymer nanofiber could be produced with the expected properties used for SVG building block.…”

Section: Petrochemical Polymer Nanofibersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(B) Synthesis of nanofibrous SVG (all-in-one structure) using PBO nanofibers as building blocks and rGO as photothermal materials( Chen M. et al, 2021 ). (C) Synthesis of CNTs-containing PAN nanofibers and corresponding SVG aerogels (all-in-one structure) ( Liu et al, 2022 ).…”

Section: Fibrous Building Blocks Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unidirectional freezing produces uniaxial aligned ice crystals, with the pore structure orienting along a single direction, which benefits water transport and thermal insulation ( Jiang et al, 2018 ). This method has been used to construct fibrous building blocks such as cellulose, polymer nanofibers, and inorganic nanofibers ( Long et al, 2018 ; Qin et al, 2021 ; Liu et al, 2022 ). Ice templating is a versatile manufacturing technique, but the time and energy consuming properties of this method limits the large-scale production of materials.…”

Section: Pore Structures Constructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fibrous Aerogels for Solar Vapor Generation

Zhang²,

Shahriari-Khalaji³

et al. 2022

Front. Chem.

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Solar-driven vapor generation is emerging as an eco-friendly and cost-effective water treatment technology for harvesting solar energy. Aerogels are solid materials with desirable high-performance properties, including low density, low thermal conductivity, and high porosity with a large internal surface, which exhibit outstanding performance in the area of solar vapor generation. Using fibers as building blocks in aerogels could achieve unexpected performance in solar vapor generation due to their entangled fibrous network and high surface area. In this review, based on the fusion of the one-dimensional fibers and three-dimensional porous aerogels, we discuss recent development in fibrous aerogels for solar vapor generation based on building blocks synthesis, photothermal materials selection, pore structures construction and device design. Thermal management and water management of fibrous aerogels are also evaluated to improve evaporation performance. Focusing on materials science and engineering, we overview the key challenges and future research opportunities of fibrous aerogels in both fundamental research and practical application of solar vapor generation technology.

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Biomimetic Structural Design of Fabric for Low‐Cost, Scalable, and Highly Efficient Off‐Grid Solar‐Driven Water Purification

Tian,

Song,

et al. 2024

Adv Funct Materials

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Interfacial solar‐vapor generation (ISVG) is an emerging technology for water purification. However, high cost, low evaporation rate, clogging issues, and limited solar utilization under natural condictions greatly hinder its practical application. Herein, inspired by the aligned microstructure of dragonfly wings, a 3D microarray structure composed of vertically aligned hierarchical and hydrophilic carbon fibers (CFs) is constructed using a scalable fiber manufacturing technology. The microarray structure of the high‐thermal‐conductivity CFs with nanocapillaries contributes to the fast mass (steam and salt ions) and heat transfer as well as high omnidirectional light absorption. More importantly, due to the strong multiscale capillary effect, the formed 3D water evaporation surface containing abundant micro‐meniscuses and nanoscale thin water layers in the CFs arrays effectively reduces the evaporation enthalpy and creates more water/air interfaces, leading to the significant increasing evaporation rate. As a result, a high evaporation rate of 2.21 kg m−2 h−1 under one‐sun irradiation can be achieved. Moreover, the off‐grid water treatment device assembled with multiple 3D CFs‐based customized spherical evaporators can obtain a high pure water collection of 10.71 kg m−2 per day without salt accumulation under real environmental conditions. This work demonstrates a high‐efficiency, cost‐effective, and scalable strategy for high‐performance ISVG.

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Bioinspired design of electrospun nanofiber based aerogel for efficient and cost-effective solar vapor generation

Cited by 63 publications

References 56 publications

Breath‐Figure Self‐Assembled Low‐Cost Janus Fabrics for Highly Efficient and Stable Solar Desalination

Breath‐Figure Self‐Assembled Low‐Cost Janus Fabrics for Highly Efficient and Stable Solar Desalination

Fibrous Aerogels for Solar Vapor Generation

Biomimetic Structural Design of Fabric for Low‐Cost, Scalable, and Highly Efficient Off‐Grid Solar‐Driven Water Purification

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