Efficient Solar-Thermal Energy Harvest Driven by Interfacial Plasmonic Heating-Assisted Evaporation

Abstract

The plasmonic heating effect of noble nanoparticles has recently received tremendous attention for various important applications. Herein, we report the utilization of interfacial plasmonic heating-assisted evaporation for efficient and facile solar-thermal energy harvest. An airlaid paper-supported gold nanoparticle thin film was placed at the thermal energy conversion region within a sealed chamber to convert solar energy into thermal energy. The generated thermal energy instantly vaporizes the water underneath into hot vapors that quickly diffuse to the thermal energy release region of the chamber to condense into liquids and release the collected thermal energy. The condensed water automatically flows back to the thermal energy conversion region under the capillary force from the hydrophilic copper mesh. Such an approach simultaneously realizes efficient solar-to-thermal energy conversion and rapid transportation of converted thermal energy to target application terminals. Compared to conventional external photothermal conversion design, the solar-thermal harvesting device driven by the internal plasmonic heating effect has reduced the overall thermal resistance by more than 50% and has demonstrated more than 25% improvement of solar water heating efficiency.

Extremely Cost‐Effective and Efficient Solar Vapor Generation under Nonconcentrated Illumination Using Thermally Isolated Black Paper

“…This is also applicable to other reported solar vapor generation systems (e.g., ref. ) since they are also covered by a film of water and/or surrounded by heated vapor. However, this physical mechanism was not detailed in previous reports.…”

Compositional effect on the fabrication of AgxPd1−x alloy nanoparticles on c-plane sapphire at distinctive stages of the solid-state-dewetting of bimetallic thin films

“…[1][2][3][4][5] Bimetallic nanoparticles (BMNPs) including both elements in a nanoparticle are of particular interest because they can demonstrate additional functionality, tunability and device performance. [6][7][8] For example, as compared to monometallic catalytic systems, Pdbased BMNPs showed a profound enhancement in catalytic activity, selectivity and stabilities for various reactions such as CO oxidation and hydrogenation of hydrocarbons.…”

Research progress on novel solar steam generation system based on black nanomaterials

“…Therefore, researchers constructed a double‐layer structure, which can integrate two of the three elements integrated in one layer. These double‐layer structures would introduce a substrate as support, such as carbon‐based thermal foam, as well as membranes, plasma metal membranes, and narrowband semiconductor‐based membranes . These systems can be further summarized into two types.…”