Novel onion-like graphene aerogel beads for efficient solar vapor generation under non-concentrated illumination

Abstract

Onion-like shaped graphene aerogel beads have been prepared via a scalable approach for efficient and easy-to-apply water purification and desalination.

Structure Architecting for Salt‐Rejecting Solar Interfacial Desalination to Achieve High‐Performance Evaporation With In Situ Energy Generation

“…When salt crystals form and accumulate on solar absorbers' surface, the primary method to remove it is physical cleaning, which refers to simple rinsing and washing. [ 88,93,129–133 ] This method is particularly suited for flexible membrane‐type devices as demonstrated in Figure 11b, [ 111 ] which are easy to clean and do not involve heavy intervention work compared to bulk materials.…”

Preparation and application of sunlight absorbing ultra-black carbon aerogel/graphene oxide membrane for solar steam generation systems

“…[1][2][3] Solar energy, the most abundant green inexhaustible renewable energy source on the Earth, 4,5 is widely used in many elds including solar photovoltaics, solar architecture, production of hydrogen, photocatalysis, articial photosynthesis. 6,7 In addition to the above mentioned applications, utilization of photothermal materials for solar steam generation (SSG) has recently received much attention because of the high solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency which is prominent in extensive applications such as power generation, seawater desalination and purication, wastewater treatment, liquidliquid phase separation, and sterilization. 5,6,8 An ideal SSG system comprises of three main components: light absorbent layer to absorb the solar spectrum, water supplier layer to transport water from bulk to the surface due to the capillary effect, and thermal insulator layer to minimize the heat loss to the bulk water.…”

“…In comparison to the traditional solar desalination water, these systems showed improved solar energy conversion efficiency due to the localization of heat in a thin layer and decreasing the heat loss. 5,6,[8][9][10][11] Various photothermal materials including metallic nanoparticles, 12,13 metal-salts/oxides, carbon materials, [5][6][7][8]10,11,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] ceramic, composite materials, 23 organic polymers, 4,9,24,25 covalent organic frameworks, 26 semiconductor materials 27 and wood-based materials 28 have been investigated. 6,11 Plasmonic and carbon-based materials are the most common materials used in SSG systems.…”

“…31,32 Graphene-and GO-based aerogels are the promising photothermal materials for efficient SSG systems. 6,7 Jiang et al 33 synthesized bilayer hybrid composed of bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) with incorporation of GO akes in BNC bers. Using this absorbent, the evaporation rate of 11.8 kg m À2 h À1 under solar illumination of 10 kW m À2 was achieved which was about 13 times higher, in comparison to the evaporation rate in the absence of the bilayer hybrid.…”

“…Therefore, facile preparation of the cost effective CA-based absorbent for SSG is still remains a challenge. 6,7 As explained, RF-based CA is a good choice to be used instead of graphene and GO aerogels in SSG system. Although monolithic aerogels have been commonly used in SSG systems, the ink is easier to prepare and use than the monolithic structure.…”