Fast Water Evaporation from Nanopores

Abstract

Fast water evaporation is of fundamental importance for natural biological regulation and industry applications. Here, for the first time, it is demonstrated that fast evaporation can be facilely achieved by putting a membrane with perpendicularly ordered pores on the water surface. Compared with the evaporation rate of bulk water, evaporation of water from nanopores is 6.4 to 0.5 times faster at the relative humidity range from 90% to 25%. Additionally, the evaporation rate Jnano exhibits a negative correlation with the pore size and the normalized evaporation rate Jnano/Jbulk displays no obvious relation with the liquid species. Further analysis shows that the evaporation enhancement is induced by the enhanced vapor density close to the evaporating surface. These results provide a simple geometrical method for evaporation enhancement and may stimulate new inspirations on phase change phenomena and applications.

Integrated Multi-Layered Fabric with Tunable Water Supply to the Photothermal Conversion Layer for an Efficient Solar Water Evaporation

“…The shortage of clean water resources is one of the major crises faced by human society. , The research and development of new methods for cheap, efficient, portable, and reliable access to clean water resources have attracted widespread attention both at industrial and individual levels. − Solar energy is an inexhaustible source of clean energy with zero greenhouse gas emissions. − Using abundant solar energy and seawater or other unpurified water to generate and collect freshwater through desalination and distillation is a practical and green approach. This technique has great potential to provide a solution to the growing challenge of water scarcity. − …”

Morphology Characteristics of the Liquid–Vapour Interface in Porous Media

“…Under varying conditions of saturation, the liquid-vapour (l-v) interface ubiquitously manifests within porous media, inevitably engaging a multitude of natural and industrial systems, such as evaporation and transport in microporous membranes [1,2], geological sequestration of carbon dioxide [3,4], and playing pivotal roles in natural phenomena like plant transpiration and industrial processes such as desalination of seawater [5,6]. Previous research has extensively investigated interface characteristics such as surface area, curvature, phase morphology, and phase connectivity during processes like CO 2 injection or oil/gas displacement in oil/water or CO 2 /salt interface [7][8][9].…”

Significant Enhancement in the Thermoelectric Properties of Ionogels through Solid Network Engineering

“…[ 1 ] It is ubiquitous on earth and usually dissipated to environment as waste heat, it is thus of practical significance to develop novel technology to harvest the low‐grade heat. [ 2 ] Among the heat‐to‐electricity conversion technologies including organic Rankine cycles, [ 3 ] Kalina cycle, [ 4 ] thermo‐osmotic energy conversion, [ 5 ] and thermoelectric conversion, [ 6 ] thermoelectric conversion is the only feasible technology to harvest low‐grade heat. [ 2,7 ] In terms of the charge carriers, the thermoelectric (TE) materials can be classified into electronic and ionic TE materials.…”

“…cycles, [3] Kalina cycle, [4] thermo-osmotic energy conversion, [5] and thermoelectric conversion, [6] thermoelectric conversion is the only feasible technology to harvest low-grade heat. [2,7] In terms of the charge carriers, the thermoelectric (TE) materials can be classified into electronic and ionic TE materials.…”