Guaranteeing Complete Salt Rejection by Channeling Saline Water through Fluidic Photothermal Structure toward Synergistic Zero Energy Clean Water Production and <i>In Situ</i> Energy Generation

Zhang, Yaoxin; Xiong, Tao; Suresh, L. Padma; Qu, Hao; Zhang, Xueping; Zhang, Qian; Yang, Jiachen; Tan, Swee Ching

doi:10.1021/acsenergylett.0c01797

Cited by 136 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We believe this mechanistic model-driven, fully quantitative design approach can serve as general guidelines to interface fluidic flow engineering with various solar evaporation devices. In addition, it is possible to improve the resistance to biofouling by taking advantage of the convective flow [42][43][44] , which requires further investigation in future works.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Highly efficient and salt rejecting solar evaporation via a wick-free confined water layer

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent advances in thermally localized solar evaporation hold significant promise for vapor generation, seawater desalination, wastewater treatment, and medical sterilization. However, salt accumulation is one of the key bottlenecks for reliable adoption. Here, we demonstrate highly efficient (>80% solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency) and salt rejecting (20 weight % salinity) solar evaporation by engineering the fluidic flow in a wick-free confined water layer. With mechanistic modeling and experimental characterization of salt transport, we show that natural convection can be triggered in the confined water. More notably, there exists a regime enabling simultaneous thermal localization and salt rejection, i.e., natural convection significantly accelerates salt rejection while inducing negligible additional heat loss. Furthermore, we show the broad applicability by integrating this confined water layer with a recently developed contactless solar evaporator and report an improved efficiency. This work elucidates the fundamentals of salt transport and offers a low-cost strategy for high-performance solar evaporation.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Highly efficient and salt rejecting solar evaporation via a wick-free confined water layer

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…[ 1–6 ] Recently, a variety of photothermal structures and systems with antifouling and/or generator functions were developed for addressing the challenges of the water−energy nexus based on the SIWE technique. [ 4,7–11 ] A prominent feature of the SIWE technique lies in the position of the photothermal materials, which is at the interfaces between liquid water and the above air. [ 3,6 ] Such special configuration not only localizes solar‐converted heat at the water−air interface, avoiding wastefully heating underlying bulk water, but also offers remarkably larger surface area for rapid steam release.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Gelation‐Stabilized Strategy toward Photothermal Architecture Design for Highly Efficient Solar Water Evaporation

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Constructing a solar‐driven interfacial evaporation system with effective energy confinement and conversion abilities is highly desired for seawater desalination and wastewater purification without the need of a complex and costly infrastructure. Herein, a powerful universal approach for the bottom‐up design of the photothermal conversion system using 0D nanoparticles is reported. That is, the integration of nanoparticles with cotton fibers (CFs) is first formed by surface adsorption and then reinforced by in situ cross‐linked polyvinyl alcohol chains. The developed photothermal architecture exhibits a superior water evaporation performance, excellent durability, and high adaptability in various environments. By this approach, the resulting system of carbon dots assembled on the surface of CFs is able to evaporate water with a rate of 2.32 kg m−2 h−1 and a solar‐to‐vapor efficiency of 93.6% under 1 sun irradiation, remarkably superior to the evaporators made by other black photothermal sheets. Thereby, the presented method enables potentially low‐cost, abundant, and tunable 0D nanomaterials for rationally designing ideal solar conversion structures.

show abstract

“…Some solar evaporation systems can produce clean water and power simultaneously. [ 33 ] Tan et al [ 34 ] designed a fluidic photothermal structure that was able to completely prevent salt formation for durable steam generation while achieving electricity generation during the one‐way fluid transportation. In addition to the integrated design of the solar evaporation system, the structural characteristics of evaporators, such as geometric characteristics, also have an important effect on the evaporation performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaporation Performance of Wood‐Based Evaporator for Solar Interfacial Vapor Generation

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Inspired by the natural transpiration of plants, an interfacial evaporator based on natural wood and a carbon black cellulose film (CB film) is designed. The existence of the CB film significantly improves the light absorptance of the woodblock from 21% to 96%. After the woodblock is modified with ammonia, the evaporation efficiency increases by 15%. The evaporation efficiency of the woodblock coated with a CB film is 30% higher than that without a CB film. The influence of evaporator size on evaporation performance is analyzed. As the woodblock has low thermal conductivity, the heat transfer to bulk water is inhibited as the thickness of the woodblock increases. In contrast, the increase of woodblock thickness is not conducive to the transport of water to the evaporator surface. Therefore, with the increase of woodblock thickness, the evaporation rate increases first and then decreases. For the evaporator with a diameter of 2 cm and a thickness of 2 cm, the evaporation rate under the illumination of 3.5 sun reaches 4.6727 kg m−2 h−1 and the evaporation efficiency is 93.35%. Considering its simplicity, low cost and high efficiency, the wood‐based evaporator prepared in this article provides the possibility for the popularization and application of solar interfacial evaporation.

show abstract

Guaranteeing Complete Salt Rejection by Channeling Saline Water through Fluidic Photothermal Structure toward Synergistic Zero Energy Clean Water Production and In Situ Energy Generation

Cited by 136 publications

References 51 publications

Highly efficient and salt rejecting solar evaporation via a wick-free confined water layer

Highly efficient and salt rejecting solar evaporation via a wick-free confined water layer

A Gelation‐Stabilized Strategy toward Photothermal Architecture Design for Highly Efficient Solar Water Evaporation

Evaporation Performance of Wood‐Based Evaporator for Solar Interfacial Vapor Generation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About