Synthesis and Photo‐Thermal Conversion Properties of Hierarchical Titanium Nitride Nanotube Mesh for Solar Water Evaporation

Abstract

Hierarchical TiN nanotube mesh (HTNM) is prepared by calcining TiO2 nanotube mesh (TONM) in NH3 flow where the TONM is fabricated by electrochemical anodic oxidation of Ti mesh. Calcining temperature affects not only phase composition but also morphology of the HTNM, which further affects its optical absorption and solar water evaporation conversion efficiency (η). The η can reach to 85.36% under 2.5 kW m−2 simulated solar irradiation because HTNM efficiently utilizes solar light. Moreover, it can be reutilized because of its stabilities of the phase composition and nanostructure during the measurements of solar water evaporation performance.

Fundamentals and applications of photo-thermal catalysis

“…Chalcogenides, nitrides or pnictogenides have recently appeared as promising candidates for photothermal catalysis owing to their capability to transform light into heat. [303][304][305] (d) The investigation of long-term stability of photocatalysts remains insufficient, as most of the stability tests are limited to several hours. For an adequate scale-up to commercial plants, feasible and stable photocatalysts are required.…”

Broadband Ultrafast Dynamics of Refractory Metals: TiN and ZrN

“…[ 1–9 ] Titanium nitride (TiN), zirconium nitride (ZrN), and other plasmonic nitrides such as hafnium nitride (HfN) and tantalum nitride (TaN) are particularly attractive due to their high melting points that bolster stability at higher ambient temperatures [ 10–12 ] and/or under higher laser irradiation intensities, [ 13–16 ] in addition to their mechanical hardness [ 17,18 ] and complementary metal‐oxide‐semiconductor compatibility. [ 19–21 ] Recent work has demonstrated that TiN shows strong local heating compared to Au, [ 22–24 ] which may be exploited for photothermal therapy, [ 25,26 ] shape‐memory effects, [ 27 ] thermochromic windows, [ 28 ] photoreactions, [ 29–32 ] heat transducers or thermophotovoltaic materials, [ 22,33–37 ] or photodetection. [ 38 ] Implicit in these observations and devices are very different optical responses of metallic nitrides compared to gold—the most similar classical plasmonic material—particularly with regard to the dissipation of heat.…”

Highly efficient solar steam generation of low cost TiN/bio-carbon foam

“…Once 1 kW m −2 simulated sun light irradiated on these samples, vapor generated immediately with the mass changed with time as shown in Fig. 5a and c. The solar-vapor conversion efficiency (η) can be calculated by Equation (2) [19].…”

“…In order to enhance solar evaporation conversion efficiency, it is necessary to combine high-efficiency PTC materials with a substrate for heat insulation and liquid supply. PTC materials for heating and evaporating water include plasmonic metals [14][15][16][17][18] and ceramic nanomaterials [19], carbon-based materials [20][21][22][23][24][25] and semiconducting nanomaterials [26,27]. For instances, Chen et al [28] reported a dualfunctional asymmetric plasmonic structure formed by silver nanoparticles and porous templates.…”

“…Hu et al [33] and Ren et al [34] respectively used GO-based aerogels and hierarchical graphene foam for efficient solar steam generation. Recently, we reported the hierarchical TiN nanotube mesh on glass-fiber cotton for solar water evaporation with 85.36% efficiency under 2.5 kW m −2 simulated solar irradiation [19]. Until now, the highest efficiency under 1 Sun is 94% using a hierarchically nanostructured gel based on polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and polypyrrole (PPy) [35].…”