Janus-interface engineering boosting solar steam towards high-efficiency water collection

Yao, Houze; Zhang, Panpan; Yang, Ce; Liao, Qihua; Hao, Xuanzhang; Huang, Yaxin; Zhang, Miao; Wang, Xianbao; Lin, Tengyu; Cheng, Huhu; Yuan, Jiayin; Qu, Liangti

doi:10.1039/d1ee01381e

Cited by 179 publications

(97 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…However, further improvement of evaporation performance has encountered bottlenecks 33 , 34 . The conventional evaporators are structurally fixed, incapable of disassembling and deforming, thus generally inducing the salt deposition and lowering the evaporation efficiency 35 – 38 , although different strategies have been tried including Janus structure 18 , 36 , localized crystallization 35 , contactless evaporation 37 , 39 , 40 , convective flow of water 38 , 41 , and wick-free water layer 42 . Most of them only involve the passive fluidic flow of water, the active circulation of water and salt ions has not been reported, which could deal with the problem of the slow diffusivity in passive convection 42 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A reconfigurable and magnetically responsive assembly for dynamic solar steam generation

et al. 2022

Nat Commun

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Interfacial solar vapor generation is a promising technique to efficiently get fresh water from seawater or effluent. However, for the traditional static evaporation models, further performance improvement has encountered bottlenecks due to the lack of dynamic management and self-regulation on the evolving water movement and phase change in the evaporation process. Here, a reconfigurable and magnetically responsive evaporator with conic arrays is developed through the controllable and reversible assembly of graphene wrapped Fe3O4 nanoparticles. Different from the traditional structure-rigid evaporation architecture, the deformable and dynamic assemblies could reconfigure themselves both at macroscopic and microscopic scales in response to the variable magnetic field. Thus, the internal water transportation and external vapor diffusion are greatly promoted simultaneously, leading to a 23% higher evaporation rate than that of static counterparts. Further, well-designed hierarchical assembly and dynamic evaporation system can boost the evaporation rate to a record high level of 5.9 kg m−2 h−1. This proof-of-concept work demonstrates a new direction for development of high performance water evaporation system with the ability of dynamic reconfiguration and reassembly.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A reconfigurable and magnetically responsive assembly for dynamic solar steam generation

et al. 2022

Nat Commun

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“…Ultrablack materials refer to the materials that absorb almost all of the incident light of a certain band without reflection and transmittance. Due to their high light absorbance and efficient photothermal conversion, [1][2][3][4] ultrablack materials are used for shading, [5,6] photothermal therapy, [7,8] photocatalysis, [9] detection, [10][11][12] solar steam generation, [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] and other fields. [21,22] Among these applications, solar steam generation, which is an economical technology that uses solar energy and the photothermal effect of ultrablack materials to promote evaporation of water and thereby solve the crises of drinking water shortage and water pollution, comes to the force in recent years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrablack Poly(vinyl alcohol)‐Graphite Composite Xerogel with Vertically Arranged Pores for Highly Efficient Solar Steam Generation and Desalination

Wang

et al. 2022

Adv Energy and Sustain Res

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Ultrablack materials have attracted wide attention due to their high light absorbance and efficient photothermal conversion used in the field of solar steam generation to alleviate the drinking water crisis. Herein, ultrablack and low‐cost poly(vinyl alcohol)‐graphite composite xerogels (PGCXs) that have vertically arranged pores and high thermal conductivities are fabricated. The PGCX‐50% shows high light absorbance (95.44%), good wettability, and a water evaporation rate of 1.24 kg m−2 h−1 under 1 sun illumination when coupled in a two dimensional (2D) evaporator. To further improve the solar steam generation performance, the PGCX‐50% is switched to a three dimensional (3D) evaporator by rotating it. Under 1 sun illumination, the 3D evaporator has a highest water evaporation rate of 3.80 kg m−2 h−1, which is 3.07 times that of the 2D evaporator, due to its larger evaporation area and higher surface area at subambient temperature. Finally, a heatsink‐like 3D evaporator is designed and a water evaporation rate of up to 9.54 kg m−2 h−1 is achieved when coupled with wind energy. The high water evaporation rates of the PGCX even in concentrated brines ensure its great potential for drinking water production and seawater desalination.

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“…[3] Fortunately, the desalination of seawater is a promising alternative for the mitigation of water scarcity. Compared to the well-developed reverse osmosis seawater desalination [4,5] and membrane distillation technology, [6] solar energy-assisted water purification technology does not rely on electrical and chemical energy, exhibiting high solar-to-steam conversion efficiency and great industrial potential in seawater desalination generation efficiency. [30] In addition to the direct utilization of solar radiation, the gain of environmental energy provides an optimal strategy to promote solar steam generation efficiency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[ 3 ] Fortunately, the desalination of seawater is a promising alternative for the mitigation of water scarcity. Compared to the well‐developed reverse osmosis seawater desalination [ 4,5 ] and membrane distillation technology, [ 6 ] solar energy‐assisted water purification technology does not rely on electrical and chemical energy, exhibiting high solar‐to‐steam conversion efficiency and great industrial potential in seawater desalination and wastewater purification. [ 7–9 ] Recently, much attention has been paid to the basic science behind the solar‐driven steam generation, such as the selection of organic and inorganic solar‐thermal materials, the structural construction of evaporators, the solar light absorption efficiency, the water transport, and the water evaporation behavior.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduced Graphene Oxide Decorated Cellulose Acetate Filter Evaporators for Highly Efficient Water Evaporation and Purification Driven by Solar Energy and Environmental Energy

et al. 2022

Advanced Sustainable Systems

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Though solar energy‐driven steam generation is promising for cleaning water, the water evaporation efficiency has to be enhanced further. Herein, 3D reduced graphene oxide (RGO) decorated cellulose acetate filter (RGF) evaporators are fabricated by immersing the porous cellulose acetate filters (CFs) in a suspension of graphene oxide, followed by drying and chemical reduction for efficient solar steam generation. The RGO sheets can absorb solar light and convert solar energy to thermal energy, while the hydrophilic and porous CFs with lots of vertical channels are responsible for transporting water to the top evaporation surfaces and accommodating the RGO sheets. In addition to gaining thermal energy from direct solar energy absorption and conversion, the sidewall of the RGF evaporator can also gain additional thermal energy from the surrounding environment as long as the sidewall temperature of the RGF evaporator is lower than the surrounding environment temperature as a result of the cooling effect of the evaporation. Driven by both solar energy and environmental energy, the RGF evaporator achieves a high water generation rate of ≈2.81 kg m−2 h−1 with an energy conversion efficiency of ≈130.2%, and high efficiencies in cleaning seawater and wastewater are also demonstrated.

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Janus-interface engineering boosting solar steam towards high-efficiency water collection

Abstract: Solar powered clean water production has been considered a favorable way to address the problem of global water shortage. Recently, the interfacial solar-steam generation system has greatly improved water evaporation...

Cited by 179 publications

References 53 publications

A reconfigurable and magnetically responsive assembly for dynamic solar steam generation

A reconfigurable and magnetically responsive assembly for dynamic solar steam generation

Ultrablack Poly(vinyl alcohol)‐Graphite Composite Xerogel with Vertically Arranged Pores for Highly Efficient Solar Steam Generation and Desalination

Reduced Graphene Oxide Decorated Cellulose Acetate Filter Evaporators for Highly Efficient Water Evaporation and Purification Driven by Solar Energy and Environmental Energy

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