Anti-biofouling double-layered unidirectional scaffold for long-term solar-driven water evaporation

Wang, Xiangying; Xue, Jingzhe; Ma, Chunfeng; He, Tao; Qian, Haisheng; Bao, Wan-Su; Liu, Jian‐Wei; Lu, Yang

doi:10.1039/c9ta02210d

Cited by 66 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…The localization of heat leads towards maximum solar-driven steam generation as compared to other traditional low yield water evaporation (due to the vast loss of solar heat to the bulk water and surrounding) [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. In recent years, many successful attempts were accomplished regarding photothermal conversion-based steam generation without any input energy in various fields such as clean water production, photothermal therapy, photoimaging, energy generation, and many other industrial applications [ 5 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Solar-driven interfacial evaporation is one of the most promising alternatives to conventional desalination technologies in recent years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Super Hydrophilic Activated Carbon Decorated Nanopolymer Foam for Scalable, Energy Efficient Photothermal Steam Generation, as an Effective Desalination System

et al. 2020

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Clean water scarcity is still an intense, prolonged global issue that needs to be resolved urgently. The solar steam generation has shown great potential with a high energy conversion efficiency for clean water production from seawater and wastewater. However, the high evaporation rate of water cannot be preserved due to the inevitable fouling of solar absorbers. Herein, a self-floatable and super hydrophilic solar-driven steam generator composed of activated carbon coated melamine foam (ACM). The deposited ACM photothermal layer exhibits outstanding solar absorption (92%) and an efficient evaporation rate of 1.27 kg m−2 h−1, along with excellent photothermal conversion efficiency (80%) as compared to commercially available primitive solar stills. The open porous assembly of melamine foam equipped with 80% flexibility (0.8 MPa) enabled smooth water transport and sustain heat accumulation within the matrix. The thermal insulation of ACM is 10 times greater than pure water. Moreover, open porous assembly of designed solar-powered steam generator rejects salt ions as well as volatile organic compounds efficiently. The low-cost and facile fabrication of photothermal based water production presents a potential solution to single step drinking water supply from various resources of the sea, the lakes and mixtures of emulsified oil and industrial wastewater.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Super Hydrophilic Activated Carbon Decorated Nanopolymer Foam for Scalable, Energy Efficient Photothermal Steam Generation, as an Effective Desalination System

et al. 2020

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“…To mitigate these, research attention on anti‐biofouling structures should be paid. [ 161,162 ] Decay is very likely to occur to photothermal materials with low biological resistance. Wood, which has been widely considered as one of the most promising solutions for large‐scale low‐cost solar desalination, is such a material suffering a high risk of decay in seawater over time.…”

Section: Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2020

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requirement has given rise to research thrusts being focused on the development of solar-driven evaporation based desalination technologies. [4][5][6][7] The research on using solar energy in the desalination process has a long history. [3,8,9] In a traditional singleslope basin-like solar still (Figure 1a), saline water is heated and subsequently evaporated by directly exposing to solar radiation. Solar energy is absorbed and converted into thermal energy by a black light-absorbing liner that is situated at the bottom of the solar basin. [10] Due to this design, the solar absorber is immersed in bulk seawater and it hardly receives a fraction of the incoming solar radiation owing to poor light penetration through the thick water layer. Furthermore, the produced heat is easily dissipated into the bulk water, and further lost to the surroundings through water surface radiation, convection and conduction. Due to the above reasons, the resulting solar-tosteam conversion efficiency is inevitably low. Nanoparticle dispersed fluid was then demonstrated to harness solar energy and found to be a great boon to direct water vapor generation. [11,12] A solar conversion efficiency of up to ≈70% can be possibly achieved because heat loss to bulk water is mitigated ( Figure 1b). [13,14] However, research on this advancement didn't last because of the development of solar interfacial heating strategy, which is shown in Figure 1c. The concept of interfacial evaporation was first put forth in 2014 by two reports simultaneously, [15,16] and received a surge of attention and interest immediately in the following years. The most prominent feature of solar interfacial evaporation lies in the position of the solar absorber, which is at the interface between saline liquid and the above air. This special configuration not only minimizes heat loss from the solar absorber to bulk water, but also provides significantly more surface area for prompt vapor release. Also, solar radiation is photothermally localized at the surface of solar absorber, giving rise to high surface temperature, which enables fast heat transfer to water. With it, water transported from reservoir can be heated and evaporated immediately to achieve a higher rate of steam generation. In addition to the differences in heating strategies, it should be noted that all the solar stills follow the same evaporation-condensation route for desalination and clean water collection, and to this end, a similar device structure (e.g., solar still with sloping cover) is usually employed.The past few years have witnessed a rapid development of solar-driven interfacial evaporation, a promising technology for low-cost water desalination. As of today, solar-to-steam conversion efficiencies close to 100% or even beyond the limit are becoming increasingly achievable in virtue of unique photothermal materials and structures. Herein, the cutting-edge approaches are summarized, and their mechanisms for photothermal structure architecting are uncovered in order to achieve ultrahigh conversion e...

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“…(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18) Among them, plasmonic and carbon-based absorbers have their inherent weaknesses, such as low chemical stability and high cost for plasmonic absorbers, and low stability against water and bacteria for carbon absorbers. (19)(20)(21) Besides, those developed systems generally feature a single function with transfering solar energy into heat, and multifunctional evaporator remain unexploited but supremely desirable. Especially, during evaporation, the formed warm environment around the evaporator is capable of promoting the growth of microorganisms which seriously affects working life of the evaporator.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, exploiting functional absorber to simultaneously achieve efficient evaporation and antibiofouling property is a major requirement. (22,23) In conventional methods, Ag, (20) ZnO (21) nanoparticles and Mxene (24) are additionally dopped into evaporator as bacteriostatic agent, endowing the evaporator with antibioflouling behavior to provent channel plugging caused by microorganisms proliferation. Those strategies, however, require tedious labor in the preparation process and influence evaporation output due to the insufficient compatibility.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Side Area-Assisted 3D Evaporator with Antibiofouling Function for Ultra-Efficient Solar Steam Generation

Zhu²,

Li³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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<a></a>Solar-driven interfacial steam generation (SISG) has been recognized as the most promising strategy to solve water shortages in an eco-friendly and low-cost way. However, the practical application of SISG is vitally restricted by some inherent limits, especially for finite evaporation rate and insufficient working life of evaporator. Herein, we explore a novel SISG system involving an all-fiber porous cylinder-like foam (AFPCF) 3D evaporator, side area-assisted evaporation protocol, and aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-active molecules with “one stone two birds” function. The AIE-featured solar absorber exhibits highly efficient sunlight absorption and photothermal conversion, endowing the side area-assisted evaporator with as high as 3.6 kg m-2 h -1 of solar evaporation rate under 1 sun of irradiation. Moerover, the evaporator is capable of powerfully producing reactive oxygen species (ROS) upon sunlight irradiation benefiting the prominent photosensitizing property of the AIE molecules, which results in extraordinary photodynamic killing of bacteria nearby the fiber to prevent biofouling, consequently improving the working life of evaporator

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Anti-biofouling double-layered unidirectional scaffold for long-term solar-driven water evaporation

Abstract: An anti-biofouling double layered GCZ scaffold is fabricated as a long-term stable solar-driven steam generation device in bacteria-containing actual environment.

Cited by 66 publications

References 56 publications

Super Hydrophilic Activated Carbon Decorated Nanopolymer Foam for Scalable, Energy Efficient Photothermal Steam Generation, as an Effective Desalination System

Super Hydrophilic Activated Carbon Decorated Nanopolymer Foam for Scalable, Energy Efficient Photothermal Steam Generation, as an Effective Desalination System

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

Side Area-Assisted 3D Evaporator with Antibiofouling Function for Ultra-Efficient Solar Steam Generation

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