Zifen Fan,Jiaxin Ren,Huiying Bai,Panpan He,Liang Hao,Ning Liu,Bingyu Chen,Ran Niu,Jiang Gong
The integration of freshwater and electricity cogeneration through photothermal effect is regarded as a new and promising strategy for high-efficiency solar energy utilization. However, the central issue is the design of low-cost, flexible photothermal materials to efficiently utilize solar energy. Herein, flexible MnO/C nanoparticle-based solar evaporators are constructed to realize simultaneously interfacial solar evaporation and thermoelectricity generation. The MnO/C nanoparticle is facilely fabricated by pyrolysis of Mn-MOF, which is synthesized from discarded poly(ethylene terephthalate) bottles in one-pot solvothermal method. By altering pyrolysis temperature of Mn-MOF from 400 °C to 700 °C, the morphology of MnO/C nanoparticle is readily tailored from cube to sphere, octahedron and polyhedron. Owing to the fast water transport, strong sunlight absorptivity, high solar-to-heat conversion efficiency, and low evaporation enthalpy, the hybrid solar evaporator presents the high evaporation rate of 2.38 kg m −2 h −1 and solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency of 98.4% under 1 Sun irradiation, surpassing many advanced photothermal materials. More importantly, integrated with a thermoelectric module, the bifunctional solar evaporator recovers low-grade heat from water evaporation to perform thermoelectric conversion, achieving the maximum output voltage of 330 mV under 3 Sun irradiation. This work highlights the potential of flexible and durable solar evaporators for freshwater and power cogeneration, not merely contributing to achieving carbon neutrality and upcycling of waste plastics, but also opening opportunities for giant electricity supply from sustainable solar energy.
Recycling spent polyesters, a widely used type of plastic, is highly important for a circular economy but remains a great challenge. Herein, biomass-derived dimethyl isosorbide (DMI) was developed as an emerging solvent for recycling waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET). DMI showed a good ability to rapidly dissolve PET in 10 min at 170 °C to obtain a solubility of 0.3 gPET gDMI−1, originating from the matched Hansen solubility parameters between PET and DMI. Moreover, the dissolved PET in DMI could be regenerated with a PET degradation ratio of only 2.9% using water as an anti-solvent. More importantly, DMI-based solvents were highly effective for alkaline (KOH) hydrolysis of PET to generate terephthalic acid (TPA). In a solvent composed of DMI and ethylene glycol (EG) with a volume ratio of 6 : 4, complete conversion of PET could be achieved in 30 min at 100 °C, and the yield of TPA was nearly quantitative (99.6%). Systematic investigation revealed that the good performance of DMI/EG mixed solvents resulted from the formation of hydrogen-bonding interactions between DMI and EG. The renewability and good performance for PET recycling confirmed the great potential of DMI in practical applications of recycling waste plastics.
危险品化学品经营许可证（带存储）