Recently,
solar evaporators composed of photothermal materials
and their carriers have been designed and produced to enhance the
solar evaporation rates based on interfacial solar heating. However,
maintaining the high evaporation rate while preventing salt accumulation
remains a challenge. In this paper, a water transport channel was
designed to move the brine outside the solar evaporator to the expandable
polyethylene (EPE) foam around the evaporator, thereby preventing
salt accumulation in the evaporator. The concentration of the treated
seawater was not increased during continuous evaporation and therefore
avoiding the treatment of the high-concentration brine. The salt-rejecting
solar evaporator was composed of a top layer of photothermal materials
for high solar absorption, a thermal barrier layer of EPE foam for
floatation and heat insulation, and a rationally designed water transport
channel of air-laid paper (ALP) for fast seawater delivery to the
top layer and outside the evaporator. The water evaporation rate of
the simulated seawater by the salt-rejecting evaporator under 1 kW·m–2 solar irradiance was significantly enhanced to 1.46
kg·m–2·h–1 (accompanied
by a photothermal conversion efficiency of 91.7%), which was 3.74
times higher than evaporation rate of the simulated seawater alone.
The salt-rejecting evaporator also displayed excellent stability and
durability as the evaporation rate was unchanged after 16 cycles of
use. Finally, the potential application of the salt-rejecting evaporator
was demonstrated in a practical setting by packing 25 evaporators
in an EPE foam plate.
Fe3O4@C core–shell nanocrystals are self-assembled into a uniform floating film on water surface for promoting interfacial solar heating toward steam generation.
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