Biowaste‐Derived Carbonized Bone for Solar Steam Generation and Seawater Desalination

Abstract

produce potable water, [2] to substitute the current technologies. The available technologies require large centralized infrastructure and high energy consumption limiting their applicability especially in the offshore areas, small villages, or remote off-grid regions. [3] A valuable alternative for an effective, low-cost, and easy to implement technology for potable water production has been recently demonstrated to be solar steam generation. [4] In this process, solar energy is exploited to generate steam from the water through a photothermal process, by using diverse porous materials based on plasmonic, [5] semiconductors, [6] and carbon-based systems, [7][8][9] which are able to absorb solar light and efficiently transform it into heat. [5,7] Carbon-based materials such as graphene, carbon nanotubes, or nanofibers are widely used as components of porous materials for a solar steam generation because of their broad light absorption, good stability, and large surface area. [10,11] Nevertheless, these materials are typically expensive, their fabrication involves noxious chemicals (e.g., the liquid-phase exfoliation process), and their production and handling present diverse difficulties. [10,11] Alternatively, biobased, [9,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] and food-waste [16,[20][21][22] carbonized materials have been successfully prepared following straightforward methods, resulting in cost-effective materials with favorable properties for an ideal photothermal system. In fact, they possess an outstanding ability of light absorption, highly porous structure and hydrophilicity, and good photothermal properties, all essential for efficient solar-driven steam production. [12,13] Therefore, due to their inherent properties, biowaste materials have a huge potential to be successfully used in this application and their further processing and exploration are continuously growing. [23] In fact, apart from their favorable properties, carbonized biobased materials are economical and are available in great abundance, making this approach an optimal sustainable solution to counter the forthcoming water shortage problem.Animal bone is categorized among the most abundant biowaste materials. According to a recent report, the global meat industry produces 130 billion kg of animal bone per annum with over 10% produced in the European Union. [24] The animal bone's composition is a valuable source for the development of diverse materials for advanced applications. Specifically, bone is Interfacial solar steam generation is an emerging strategy to improve the global freshwater supply. Herein, for the first time, a plausible alternative based on bone waste is presented for low-cost solar steam generation and seawater desalination. This is accomplished via the exploration of the appropriate carbonization conditions for the successful bone transformation into a porous carbonbased photothermal material. The carbonized bone (CB) not only is composed of inherent interlinked mesoporous microchannels for efficient water transportation but ...

Recent advances in interfacial solar vapor generation: clean water production and beyond

“…Compared with plasmonic and semiconducting materials, carbon materials are more abundant, intrinsically black, and low-cost, which are conducive to the ultimate commercialization of ISVG systems. Numerous carbon materials including exfoliated graphite, 8,111 carbon black, 36,[112][113][114] carbon nanotubes, 52,[115][116][117][118][119][120] and graphene-derived materials, 55,[121][122][123][124][125][126][127][128][129][130] as well as biomass-derived carbonized materials 30,[131][132][133][134][135][136][137][138][139][140] were utilized as photothermal materials for ISVG devices. Carbon nanotube and graphene-derived materials possess signicantly large absorption cross-sections due to their nanosized scale toward several nanometers, indicating that fewer materials are required than other bulky carbon materials for achieving the same absorption.…”

Water Activation in Solar‐Powered Vapor Generation

“…First, water forms a “hydrated layer” around the polymer, which is called noncrystalline water and is assigned to the BW. [ 109,110 ] Due to the strong interaction between polar groups of hydrophilic polymers and water molecules, well‐oriented hydrogen bonds are generated between polymers and water molecules. Noncrystalline water cannot freeze even if the temperature is extremely low because this prevents water from moving to produce ice crystals during the cooling step.…”

A Simple, Scalable, Low‐Cost Honeycomb‐Like Carbonized Corncob for Highly Efficient Solar Steam Generation

“…Scholars have made a lot of explorations on different materials. For instance, Zafar et al [31] used the carbonized bone composed of inherent interlinked mesoporous microchannels as solar thermal conversion material for efficient water transportation. The carbonized bone displays broadband light absorption, photothermal conversion, and reduced vaporization enthalpy due to its special interactions with water.…”