Minireview on Solar Desalination and Hydropower Generation by Water Evaporation: Recent Challenges and Perspectives in Materials Science

Abstract

Environmental energy harvesting holds great promise for sustainable development of society. Today, there are many kinds of available energy sources, such as hydropower, nuclear energy, thermal power, etc., but all of these suffer from requiring massive infrastructure investment, producing environmental pollution, and/or having the potential to experience catastrophic failure. In this review, we introduce novel methodology for harvesting energy, using evaporation of water from three-dimensional porous media, lowdimensional nanotubes, or microfibrous structures. We can produce fresh water driven by harnessing sunlight and can generate hydroelectric power via water transpiration. The former is driven by nanoscale photothermal heating, which induces rapid evaporation of water, while its bulk remains near room temperature. The latter is coupled with mass transport of water comprising ions that are condensed adjacent to the charged surface of the porous or fibrous media. These proposed schemes are clean, simple, and useful, which can be employed anywhere, because they operate as a result of spontaneous capillary action of water, solar power, or coulombic attraction occurring at the water−solid interface. The low-cost micro-and nanostructured materials presented here are readily available, suitable for securing potable water, and offer ubiquitous, clean, permanent energy sources for self-powered sensor networks and night-time energy harvesters that do not require energy inputs.

2022 Pioneers in Energy Research: Jinhua Ye

“…Wang’s group presented a nitrogen-doped Ni/TiO 2 catalyst for the enhanced catalytic performance in CO 2 methanation . Kaur and Nagao reviewed the water evaporation from low-cost ceramic materials for substantial hydroelectric power generation …”

“…56 Kaur and Nagao reviewed the water evaporation from low-cost ceramic materials for substantial hydroelectric power generation. 57 It is our privilege to present these cross-disciplinary contributions for celebrating the pioneering work of Professor Jinhua Ye in developing photocatalytic materials for their applications in solar-to-chemical energy conversion and related research areas. We trust that our readers will find these publications interesting and stimulating.…”

Evaporation-Driven Energy Generation Using an Electrospun Polyacrylonitrile Nanofiber Mat with Different Support Substrates

“…As a result, electrical current can flow from the wet side to dry side without being subject to specific conditions or environmental influences. Despite the technology being in the early stages of development, evaporation-driven electricity generation has been highlighted for its potential applications in sensors [25], small devices [14,26,27], and desalination [28].…”

Manipulation of ZrO2/CaZrO3 fibrous membrane with high thermal stability and NIR reflectivity

“…For the light weight, high thermal shock resistance, good flexibility, and low thermal conductivity, one‐dimensional ceramic fibers, 1–3 especially ultra‐fine ceramic fibers, have attracted great attention in thermal insulating, 4,5 air filtration, 6 water purification, 7,8 and so on. Among the various widely studied high‐melting oxide ceramic fibers, zirconia (ZrO 2 ) fibers have been a hot topic for the much higher melting point and much lower thermal conductivity theoretically in thermal insulating area, especially for applications in high temperature protection and low temperature incubation 9–11 .…”