ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
·
2025
·
IF 19
Xiaoke Li,Jinchi Li,Lie Zou,Mengshan Chen,Hao Wang,Liu Yang,Rui Yang,He Zhang,Yingtang Zhou
Interfacial solar steam generation (ISSG) has emerged as a promising and eco-friendly desalination technology for producing fresh water from diverse sources, offering a sustainable solution to global water scarcity. However, practical applications face a significant bottleneck: as the evaporation surface area increases, the evaporation rate decreases, limiting large-scale implementation. In this study, a hydrogel evaporator with a donut-shaped structure is developed using 3D-printed molds to address this issue by enhancing thermal convection and reducing evaporation dead zones. Simulations reveal that optimized structural designs improve heat distribution and air convection, leading to a significant improvement in evaporation performance. Experimental results further confirm an impressive evaporation rate of 3.47 kg m −2 h −1 , representing a 66% improvement compared to conventional designs. This work highlights the potential of structural design in hydrogel evaporators to optimize thermal management and enhance evaporation efficiency. By achieving higher evaporation rates while minimizing material usage, this approach provides a scalable strategy for efficient solar desalination.
研究领域:
材料科学
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环境科学
·
能源技术
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
Nano Energy
·
2021
·
IF 17.881
Jing Liu,Jixiang Gui,Weiting Zhou,Xinlong Tian,Zhongxin Liu,Jieqiong Wang,Jing Liu,Liang Yang,Ping Zhang,Wei Huang,Jinchun Tu,Yang Cao
Water evaporation is a ubiquitous natural process than can be applied to generate electricity through hydrovoltaic effect. However, it remains a great challenge to construct an evaporation system that can satisfy both high-efficiency evaporation and stable power output due to their differences in water managements. Herein, we demonstrate a sandwich membrane strategy to construct a three-dimensional (3D) asymmetric evaporator for efficient tandem solar water-electricity generation by coating two carbon black (CB)/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) functional films with different channel structures and water uptake at two opposite sides of a wood chip. Owing to the smart self-regulating property of the thin PVA skin and the superior thermal utilization performance of the 3D structure, the fabricated device achieves high evaporation rate of 1.93 kg m −2 h −1 . More importantly, the asymmetric water distribution of the evaporation unit and the confined nanochannels of the dense PVA network render the generator with stable and efficient power output, and the simple connections of several units in series and/or parallel can easily power a commercial calculator, electrolyze methylene blue solution, and light up light emitting diodes , which well proves the conception of combining solar water evaporation and electricity generation in an integrated device.
研究领域:
能源科学
·
材料科学
✓ 已验证
DOI
高影响因子
Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering
·
2024
·
IF 7.4
Penglin Lu,Shangru Cheng,Shanshan Guan
Solar-driven interface evaporation has emerged as an attractive technology for addressing the pressing issue of water scarcity. Herein, from the perspective of utilizing and managing ocean resources, we have developed a comprehensive evaporator based on ocean biomass for efficient solar-driven interfacial evaporation, aiming to sustainably harness marine resources. The construction of a biomass-based evaporator was achieved using three-dimensional melanin nanoparticles (MNPs)@carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS)/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) porous sponge, which exhibits highly hydrophilic and porous properties. In this study, MNPs functioned as the photothermal material and the CMCS-hydrophilic modified PDMS sponge was utilized as the supportive material. Owing to its outstanding photothermal conversion capability and ingeniously designed columnar shape with cold evaporation surface, the MCP sponge-based evaporator achieves a water evaporation rate of 2.04 kg·m −2 ·h −1 and an evaporation efficiency of 85% under 1sun illumination. In addition, the MCP sponge-based evaporator exhibits an outstanding desalination performance (93% salt rejection) and purification efficiency for dyes with natural sunlight. This groundbreaking study presents an innovative method by utilizing marine biomass-derived CMCS and MNPs as raw materials to construct a high-performance solar-driven interface evaporator, thereby tackling clean water generation and promoting the sustainability of marine ecosystems.
研究领域:
材料科学
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环境科学
·
可持续发展
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
SEPARATION AND PURIFICATION TECHNOLOGY
·
2024
·
IF 8.1
Long Cheng,Chengping Li,Xingqiao Wu,Ziyi Wang,Liuting Zhang,Wei Kong,Liang Wang,Petr Senin,Arkadii Proskurin,Ting Bian
As a promising and sustainable way for freshwater production, interfacial solar vapor generation technology often encounters harsh conditions such as fluctuating illumination, high salinity, bacterial growth, and acid/alkali corrosion, which can reduce its conversion efficiency and lifespan. Here, to address these challenges, an environmentally adaptive hierarchical structure incorporating plasmonic Ag nanoparticles, MoS 2 nanoflowers, and polydopamine (PDA) (MoS 2 @PDA/Ag) within a hybrid hydrogel matrix was designed as the functional solar evaporator. By systematically adjusting the volume ratio of cellulose nanofibers (CNF) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) skeletons, high evaporation efficiencies can be achieved in hypersaline conditions. Further, the cooperation of multi-photothermal materials endows the evaporator with a broad light absorption spectrum, superior photothermal conversion efficiency, and strong antimicrobial capabilities. The evaporator demonstrates a high evaporation rate of 2.79 kg m -2 h −1 under 1 sun irradiation and maintains sustainable evaporation for 8 h without salt deposition in 20 % NaCl solution. After being immersed in an acidic and alkaline seawater environment for 30 days, the evaporator shows no change in appearance, with only a slight decrease in performance. This work presents a promising platform for the development of solar evaporators with practical applications in various environmental conditions.
研究领域:
材料科学
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环境科学
·
能源科学
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering
·
2025
·
IF 7.2
Jiyan Li,Min Qiao,Shuo Gao,Tao Zhou,Rui Jiao,Fei Wang,Hanxue Sun,An Li
Solar-driven interfacial evaporation (SDIE) has shown great potential for seawater desalination and wastewater treatment. In this context, we report the development of a composite aerogel material, termed BCAM, which is synthesized from bacterial cellulose, agar powder, and glutaraldehyde, with the addition of MXene as a photothermal material. The two active aldehyde groups (-CHO) of glutaraldehyde undergo a condensation reaction with the hydroxyl groups (-OH) in bacterial cellulose and agar powder, promoting crosslinking between the molecular chains and forming a composite material with directional channel structures. This material exhibits a rich porous structure, excellent mechanical properties, and superhydrophilic characteristics, and is shaped using a gradient cooling method. The incorporation of MXene enhances the light absorption of BCAM (up to 95.6 %), resulting in an evaporation rate of 1.78 kg·m −2 ·h −1 , while the evaporation rate of 3D BCAM reaches 3.43 kg·m −2 ·h −1 . After seawater desalination, BCAM achieved a removal efficiency of over 99 % for major ions in seawater. Furthermore, in practical industrial wastewater, the evaporation rate of the 3D BCAM evaporator reaches 2.8 kg·m −2 ·h −1 , and BCAM maintains its structural integrity after being immersed for 24 h under various acidic conditions (pH:1–5). Overall, these findings demonstrate the substantial practical application potential of BCAM in SDIE technologies.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
环境科学
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
DESALINATION
·
2023
·
IF 9.9
Xinfei Fan,Yanling Peng,Bowen Lv,Yi Yang,Zaijin You,Chengwen Song,Yuanlu Xu
Solar-driven interfacial evaporation is an emerging alternative for alleviating the water crisis due to its sustainability and eco-friendly, but it still required efficient strategies to address the major obstacle of salt accumulation during high-rate evaporation processes. Herein, a spatial solar evaporation device with hydrogel-based evaporator and 3D printing module was fabricated to achieve excellent evaporation performance based on siphon phenomenon, in which carbon nanotubes were used as light absorber and coated on cotton fabrics via polyvinyl alcohol as binder. The 3D evaporator structure captured ambient energy efficiently to accelerate water vaporization. Coupling with the low evaporation enthalpy of intermediate water in PVA-hydrogel matrix, the evaporator exhibited fascinating evaporation rate of 4.55 ± 0.06 kg m −2 h −1 in siphon mode under 1.0 sun, which was ~3.2 times and ~1.8 times higher than the 2D floating and 2.5D hanging mode. Moreover, the design of siphon effect prevented the salt accumulation on the spatial evaporation device. Even for 20.0 wt% brine, there was no salt precipitating on the evaporator surface during a long-term evaporation (8 h), demonstrating the excellent stability and durability. In addition, the concentrated brine can be separated from the feed timely, avoiding the declined evaporation performance from increased feed salinity .
研究领域:
材料科学
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环境科学
·
能源工程
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
Journal of Cleaner Production
·
2023
·
IF 11.1
Xin Zhong,Yuming Wu,Pu Zhang,Yibing Chen,Yongshuang Cai,Weiming Wang,Xue Min,Jun Xiong,Ming Li
Interfacial solar steam production (ISSP) is an attractive technique for extracting freshwater from seawater. However, significant efforts have been focused on designing solar evaporators with delicate structures to achieve excellent evaporation rates and steady desalination performance, which result in sophisticated processes and high costs that inhibit their practical application. Here, a cost-effective turnover polypyrrole decorated cotton fabric (PPy-CF) based solar evaporator was designed by sewing two identical pieces of PPy-CF photothermal material to the top and bottom of polyethylene foam (PF). The polyester fiber pillar (PFP) inserted into the PF incorporates vertical water-transporting channels to pump water into the PPy-CF efficiently. The heat dissipation of the PPy-CF was minimized by adjusting the number of PFP. The appropriate water supplied by the PFP water transporter enables the PPy-CF-based solar evaporator to attain an excellent evaporation rate of 1.56 kg m −2 h −1 and a remarkable photothermal efficiency of 90.45% under 1-solar intensity. Notably, the sufficient water provided by the PFP water transporter allows the PPy-CF-based solar evaporator to achieve a steady desalination performance of 8 h, and the evaporation rate maintains around 1.31 kg m −2 h −1 . Moreover, this solar evaporator can be self-cleaning by turning it over. Outdoor cycle experiments demonstrated that a 1 m 2 PPy-CF-based solar evaporator could produce approximately 6 kg of freshwater within 10 h. Designing a 1 m 2 this turnover solar evaporator costs about 1 dollar. The cost-effectiveness, simplicity in design, self-cleaning ability, and steady desalination performance make the turnover PPy-CF-based solar evaporator a promising solution to alleviate freshwater shortages.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
环境科学
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
Journal of Materials Chemistry A
·
2022
·Vol. 10
·期 39
·20856-20865
·
IF 14.511
Hao-Nan Li,Hao-Cheng Yang,Cheng-Ye Zhu,Jian Wu,Andreas Greiner,Zhi-Kang Xu
Solar-driven desalination by using porous evaporators has been deemed to be a sustainable pathway to obtain freshwater. Despite the emerging anti-scaling evaporators, the durable evaporation in hypersaline water remains a formidable challenge because of the unpreventable salt accumulation in the porous structures. To enhance the descaling capacity of evaporators, a self-descaling Janus evaporator (SJE) featuring a “moving interface” is developed for durable and efficient desalination of hypersaline water. This evaporator consists of an Fe3O4-embedded poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) nanofibrous layer and a hydrophilic polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibrous layer constrcuted by sequential electrospinning. Integrating the photothermal conversion of Fe3O4 and the thermal responsiveness of PNIPAM, the SJE exhibits a reversible solar-induced wettability transition from asymmetric wettability (under sunlight) to hydrophilic wettability (at night). Under sunlight, the top surface and the evaporation interface (i.e. air–water interface) are separated to prevent salt accumulation on the evaporator, benefiting efficient solar steam generation. At night, the air–water interface moves to the upper surface, showing the self-descaling ability. With this design, the SJE exhibits a high-efficiency water evaporation rate of 1.76 kg m−2 h−1 under one sun and demonstrates long-term stability (over 5 days) when treating 20 wt% NaCl solution. Overall, this work provides an exciting material solution with photothermal responsive design for the practical application of Janus evaporators in brine desalination.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
环境科学
·
能源工程
✓ 已验证
DOI
高影响因子
Journal of Materials Chemistry A
·
2024
·
IF 10.7
Rongtai Yu,Jianchao Xie,Fangfen Jin,Weiwei Lu,Mingzhu Jin,Xinyang He,Ashok K. Nanjundan,Chengzhong Yu,Xiaodan Huang
Solar-driven interfacial evaporation systems hold great potential for addressing clean water scarcity and wastewater purification challenges. However, low water yield and the presence of contaminants in wastewater remain significant obstacles. This study introduces wide light-absorbing hydrophilic aminophenol–formaldehyde (APF) resin particles with π-conjugated and π-stacked benzenoid–quinoid donor–acceptor couples as light absorbers to enhance solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency. The incorporation of hydrophilic amine groups led to a 30% increase in the evaporation rate and a 32% reduction in the evaporation enthalpy. The carbonized APF-based evaporator achieved a high evaporation rate of 2.89 kg m−2 h−1 and 3.07 kg m−2 h−1 from sewage and simulated seawater, respectively, under natural solar irradiance (0.7 suns). Furthermore, solar vapor generation rates reached 16.22 kg m−2 h−1 and 13.98 kg m−2 h−1 from sewage and simulated seawater under 3.9 suns. The APF-based evaporator also demonstrated exceptional stability and durability in solar-to-vapor conversion.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
环境科学
·
能源研究
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
DESALINATION
·
2021
·
IF 9.501
Zixiao Liu,Qiuping Zhong,Naiyan Wu,Hanzhang Zhou,Lixin Wang,Liqiong Zhu,Ning Jiang,Bo Zhu,Zhigang Chen,Meifang Zhu
Solar-driven interfacial evaporation is an attractive method for seawater desalination , but the solid-salt crystallization on solar-absorber severely shelters sunlight and thus deteriorates the evaporation rate . To solve this problem, herein we have reported vertically symmetrical evaporator based on cotton-Cs x WO 3 fabrics. Cs x WO 3 nanorods have been prepared and then coated on cotton fabrics. The resulting cotton-Cs x WO 3 fabrics exhibit broad UV-Vis-NIR photoabsorption from 200 to 2500 nm with solar absorbance efficiency of 90.5%. Subsequently, by coating two similar cotton-Cs x WO 3 fabrics on double surfaces of a cotton-embedded polystyrene (PS) foam, vertically symmetrical evaporator has been designed and constructed. When the evaporator is floating on NaCl solution (3.5 wt%), cotton-Cs x WO 3 fabric on top surface can absorb light under solar irradiation (1.0 kW m −2 ), conferring a high evaporation rate of 1.56 kg m −2 h −1 with an efficiency of 86.8%. When high-concentration (21 wt%) NaCl solution is used, the evaporation rate goes down from 1.52 to 0.53 kg m −2 h −1 within 8 h, due to the solid-salt crystallization on top surface. Importantly, the symmetrical evaporator can be self-cleaned by an inversion strategy (2 times h −1 ), conferring high and stable rate (1.53–1.58 kg m −2 h −1 ) in the 20-h cycling evaporation and thus having great potential in the practical seawater desalination.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
环境科学
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENERGY RESEARCH
·
2022
·Vol. 46
·期 11
·15043-15053
·
IF 4.672
Ming Li,Zhenning Zhang,Fan Yang,Weiming Wang,Shuai Peng,Xixian Yang,Jun Xiong,Xue Min
Summary Interface solar evaporator has been recognized as a potential device for extracting freshwater from non-potable water. Biomass like daikon is an excellent candidate for fabricating solar evaporators because of its good hydrophilia and porous structure, which facilitates water transfer and vapor release. Besides, polymers like polydopamine and polypyrrole (abbreviated as PDA and PPy, respectively) possessing wide spectrum absorption are fascinating candidates for efficient solar evaporators. Herein, PDA-decorated daikon and PPy-decorated daikon (abbreviated as PDA-DK and PPy-DK, respectively) solar evaporators have been developed for vapor production. Due to polyethylene foam can effectively concentrate the heat on the photothermal materials, under 1-solar intensity, the water vaporization rates of PDA-DK and PPy-DK are enhanced to 1.50 and 1.60 kg m −2 h −1 , and the relative solar thermal efficiencies are improved by about 40%, from 49.51% and 58.65% to 89.01% and 98.97%, respectively. Thanks to the super hydrophilicity and high water storage capacity, the PPy-DK has the self-cleaning ability and can effectively desalinate seawater with a desalination rate of around 1.6 kg m −2 h −1 . Moreover, both solar evaporators exhibit considerable stability in evaporation rate, with no significant changes within 15 cycles. Outdoor experiments demonstrate that these two solar evaporators are capable of desalinating saltwater and cleaning dye wastewater.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
环境科学
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS SCIENCE
·
2023
·Vol. 58
·期 14
·6220-6236
·
IF 4.5
Qu Mengnan,Yan Jufeng,Ge Jianwei,Zhao Yue,Xue Yuyu,Liu Xiaofeng,Liu Hui,Yan Min,He Jinmei
Interfacial solar evaporation technology is considered as one of the most promising green ways to solve the problems of freshwater scarcity and sewage treatment. Herein, we prepared a low-cost, easy-to-fabricate, and excellent performance polyaniline (PANI)-wood solar evaporator using a simple surface self-assembly technique. The evaporator achieves an evaporation rate of 1.66 kg m −2 h −1 under 1 sun and a photothermal conversion efficiency of 86.9%. In the process of seawater desalination, the purification rate of four ions in seawater reaches at least 99%. And water purified by evaporator meets the drinking water standard of the World Health Organization (WHO). In the experiment of evaporating organic dye aqueous solution, the light transmittance of the purified water is similar to that of deionized water. These performances are higher than those of most reported wood-based solar evaporators. Therefore, the efficient solar evaporation system has great potential in addressing desalination and water purification. Graphical abstract
研究领域:
材料科学
·
环境科学
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
危险品化学品经营许可证（带存储）