Energy Matching for Boosting Water Evaporation in Direct Solar Steam Generation

Mu, Xiaojiang; Gu, Yufei; Wang, Pengfei; Shi, Junxiang; Wei, Anyun; Tian, Yongzhi; Zhou, Jianhua; Chen, Yulian; Zhang, Jiahong; Sun, Zhiqiang; Liu, Jing; Peng, Biaolin; Liu, Miao

doi:10.1002/solr.202000341

Cited by 58 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 71 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…[ 45 ] As demonstrated by Mu et al, the solar‐to‐vapor energy conversion efficiency could be optimized by energy matching strategy via adjusting the water transport speed from reservoir to evaporation surface to match with the input energy. [ 46 ] Moreover, the branches of filter paper also play the role of cold evaporation interfaces between solar evaporation surface and bulk water, which can absorb and consume the conductive heat loss from solar evaporation surface to evaporate more water. [ 47,48 ]…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concentrated Acid‐Induced Dehydration of Fallen Leaves for Efficient, Sustainable, and Self‐Cleaning Solar Steam Generation

Shan

Xiong

Sheng

et al. 2020

Adv Energy and Sustain Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To develop solar steam generation (SGG) for water treatment, light absorbers have been widely synthesized by carbonization of plants at high temperature. However, the thermal treatment has high energy‐consumption and is environmentally unfriendly. Thus, it is urgent to explore new green approaches to convert biomasses to carbon materials for SSG. Herein, a concentrated acid‐induced dehydration method is developed to convert fallen leaves to carbon powders, fallen‐leaf photothermal film prepared by dehydration (FLPD). The resultant FLPD exhibits a strong absorption covering a wide spectrum. It also contains sufficient oxygen‐containing groups on the surface, leading to low water evaporation enthalpy. To meet the demands of practical applications, the FLPD membrane is modified with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to improve the mechanical stabilities and the surface wettability is further enhanced by an oxygen plasma treatment. An SSG device based on the modified membrane attains a competitive evaporation rate of 1.355 kg m−2 h−1 under 1 sun irradiation. The evaporation rate remains approximately constant when evaporating the seawater. Moreover, the salt deposited on the surface could be self‐cleaned due to the high wettability. Therefore, herein, it is demonstrated that concentrated acid‐induced dehydration is an effective and green approach to convert cheap biomasses to carbon materials for SSG applications.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concentrated Acid‐Induced Dehydration of Fallen Leaves for Efficient, Sustainable, and Self‐Cleaning Solar Steam Generation

Shan

Xiong

Sheng

et al. 2020

Adv Energy and Sustain Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Therefore, the optimal water supply should be pursued to achieve the best energy matching. [ 67 ] Besides, there is also a salt mitigation mechanism that is not driven by capillary force, namely new liquid pumping, which uses the high osmotic pressure of the material to achieve efficient water transportation, and these unique materials can also achieve salt resistance by repelling salt ions. Meanwhile, according to the different movement paths of salt ions and water molecules in capillary forced SDID devices, we divide the current salt mitigation strategies into three basic categories (Figure 2): salt ion diffusion backflow, blocking salt directly, and zero liquid discharge.…”

Section: Basic Principle Of Salt Mitigation Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Salt Mitigation Strategies of Solar‐Driven Interfacial Desalination

Wang

et al. 2020

Adv Funct Materials

192

102

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Solar‐driven interfacial desalination (SDID), which is based on localized heating and interfacial evaporation, provides an opportunity for developing environmentally friendly and cost‐effective seawater thermal desalination. However, localized heating and rapidly generated interfacial steam may cause salt to accumulate on the evaporator's surface and block the channel of steam evaporation. Salt accumulation inevitably reduces the light absorption and service period of the solar absorber, resulting in a significant decrease in evaporation efficiency over time. Salt accumulation makes it difficult to produce SDID devices with high energy efficiency and long‐term stability for large‐scale use in remote poverty‐stricken areas. Therefore, the exploration of novel and effective strategies for addressing salt accumulation through both material design and structural engineering has attracted more attention in recent years. This review presents an overview of the state‐of‐the‐art advancements in salt‐resistant photothermal evaporation and discusses the critical issues for achieving salt mitigation SDID, focusing on the classification of salt mitigation strategies based on photothermal evaporation configurations, the basic mechanism of salt mitigation, and the architectural design of photothermal materials. Finally, the important challenges and prospects of SDID are discussed to providing a meaningful roadmap to efficient salt mitigation SDID.

show abstract

“…Until now, a few works have been reported to improve the water evaporation rate by decreasing the water amount on/in the photothermal evaporator. [ 50–52 ] For example, Miao and co‐workers prepared bilayer evaporator composed of wood and carbon nanotubes aerogel to decrease the water supply rate, leading to the improved water evaporation rate. [ 50 ] Besides, Zhou et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Confinement Capillarity of Thin Coating for Boosting Solar‐Driven Water Evaporation

Wang

et al. 2021

Adv Funct Materials

159

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Realizing ultrathin water and generating an abundant water/air interface in the interconnected pores of photothermal materials is an effective way to boost the solar-driven water evaporation rate, but still a great challenge. Herein, confinement capillarity (CC) of photothermal thin coating on porous sponge for significantly enhancing the solar-driven water evaporation is proposed. The thin coating is composed of abundant agminated black/hydrophilic nanoparticles (BHNPs), and the channels among the BHNPs can generate strong capillarity for water transportation. Water can be spontaneously limited and transported among the agminated nanoparticles, rather than fill in the interconnected pores of the sponge. Thus, ultrathin water layer can be realized on the outer/inner surface of the sponge skeleton, without precisely controlling water supply. The thin water layer can not only expose as much evaporation area as possible by increasing the vapor escape channel, but also prevent solar energy to heat excess water. Thanks to the CC, the rate of solar steam generation can be greatly improved. Moreover, the photothermal material with CC can maintain its high evaporation rate during the whole day, and can remove the salt during night time, highlighting its recyclability and anti-salt-accumulation property. Moreover, the CC can be readily scaled up for practical applications.

show abstract

Energy Matching for Boosting Water Evaporation in Direct Solar Steam Generation

Cited by 58 publications

References 71 publications

Concentrated Acid‐Induced Dehydration of Fallen Leaves for Efficient, Sustainable, and Self‐Cleaning Solar Steam Generation

Concentrated Acid‐Induced Dehydration of Fallen Leaves for Efficient, Sustainable, and Self‐Cleaning Solar Steam Generation

Salt Mitigation Strategies of Solar‐Driven Interfacial Desalination

Confinement Capillarity of Thin Coating for Boosting Solar‐Driven Water Evaporation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About