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
CARBON
·
2022
·
IF 11.307
Zhipeng Jin,Minggang Zhang,Hui Mei,Hongxia Liu,Longkai Pan,Yuekai Yan,Laifei Cheng,Litong Zhang
Solar evaporation is a sustainable, environmentally friendly and promising solution to the problem of fresh water shortage. However, the widespread application of solar evaporators is limited by their spatial geometry, surface salt deposition and durability. Here, a Janus evaporator with a 3D chiral torsion structure is designed using 3D printing technology. Such a structure increases the number of light reflections to improve light collection. At the same time, the top and bottom layers of the Janus evaporator are endowed with different surface wettability . In particular, the top layer of superhydrophobic SiO 2 /CNTs aerogel acts as a photothermal absorber and prevents salt deposition, while the bottom layer of superhydrophilic CNTs aerogel accelerates water replenishment and improves water transfer efficiency. At 1 sun, the 3D Janus evaporator exhibits a high evaporation rate of 2.775 kg m −2 h −1 and a solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency of 90.2%. The 3D Janus evaporator demonstrates a strong desalination capacity in simulated seawater and allows one to obtain fresh water above drinking water standards. Moreover, it can work sustainably in different environments and has good cycle stability. The 3D Janus evaporator, prepared by 3D printing, opens up new prospects and great potential to solve the issues associated with fresh water shortage.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
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
Tianyi Xu,Penglin Lu,Jinhao Xu,Zhen Li,Shanshan Guan
The utilization of solar-driven photothermal evaporators for desalination offers a highly attractive solution to address the current global freshwater shortage, necessitating the development of scalable and efficient interfacial solar evaporators. In this study, we successfully fabricated a cost-effective Janus evaporator using bio-based chitosan (CS) and epoxidized natural rubber (ENR) latex (CS@ENR) aerogel by controlling single-sided deposition of polypyrrole (Ppy) through in-situ polymerization, followed by subsequent modification with hydrophobic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The PP-CS@ENR (PDMS/Ppy-CS@ENR) aerogel presented high light absorption (95 %) and excellent photothermal conversion capacity (up to 67.7 °C) in the full solar spectrum. The water evaporation rate of the Janus PP-CS@ENR under one sun illumination was 2.16 kg·m −2 ·h −1 , with a superior photothermal conversion efficiency of 91 %. Moreover, the evaporator exhibits exceptional recycling capability and demonstrates a consistent water evaporation rate ≥ 2.0 kg·m −2 ·h −1 after 14 days of continuous evaporation cycles. The daily production of desalinated water under outdoor solar condition is 14.8 kg per square meter (over an 8-hour period), which adequately satisfies the drinking requirements of seven adult individuals. Therefore, these advantage properties of the PP-CS@ENR biomass-based Janus evaporator enable its versatile applications in solar-driven interfacial evaporation systems.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
环境科学
·
能源科学
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
Energy Technology
·
2024
·
IF 3.6
Lingxue Kong,Ye Jia,Ke Zeng,Yuping Wang,Tengdi Zhang,Anmin Liu,Liguo Gao,Tingli Ma
Solar-driven interfacial evaporation is one of the most promising technologies to address global freshwater shortages. Compared with the integrated structure, monolithic system with asymmetric wettability can be used alone to reduce the structural complexity without sacrificing the localized management of heat. Herein, a monolithic structure of Janus Fe 3 O 4 @IF evaporator with asymmetric wettability has been fabricated via a simple in situ hydrothermal method. The low-cost Janus Fe 3 O 4 @IF evaporator can be self-floating with a sizable surface area, high porosity, and low density, which presents excellent light absorption features of 98.1% within a broadband wavelength range of 200–2500 nm. Due to the strong capillarity action and Janus wettability, the evaporation is efficient (1.64 kg m −2 h −1 ) and stable even treating with highly concentrated brine of 20 wt%. This work demonstrates an effective strategy for achieving high-performance solar-driven interfacial evaporation and superior salt rejection capability, which can be potentially utilized in seawater desalination.
研究领域:
材料科学
·
环境科学
·
能源技术
✓ 已验证
DOI
高影响因子
DESALINATION
·
2024
·
IF 8.3
Hai-Tao Ren,Hong-Bei He,Qing-Kai Zhu,Ting-Ting Li,Ching-Wen Lou,Jia-Horng Lin
Interfacial solar steam generation (ISSG) is a solution to alleviate the energy crisis by obtaining clean water at low cost. In order to maintain high evaporation rates in high salinity brines, it is necessary to develop a new ISSG device with controlled heat loss and good salt resistance. In this paper, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) was used as the backbone to construct ion-selective hydrogel, and hydrogel network with multiple hydrophilic groups was formed using Fe 3 O 4 as a broadband light absorber. Specifically, the evaporator is suspended on the water surface with evaporation rate of 3.04 kg·m −2 ·h −1 under one sun irradiation. The bilayer hydrogels can permeate Cl − and Na + selectively. The improved salt resistance is due to the exclusion mechanism of the Donnan effect, with the formed potential difference of 157.4 mV at a brine concentration of 3.5 wt%. Even if it is suspended on the water surface in a high concentration of brine, there will be no salt crystals generated. The developed Janus ion-selective hydrogel-based evaporator shows great prospect for desalination and other advanced solar thermal applications.
研究领域:
可再生能源
·
环境科学
·
材料科学
·
化学工程
✓ 已验证
产品关联
DOI
高影响因子
Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials
·
2024
·Vol. 7
·期 2
·1-14
·
IF 23.2
Li Wei,Li Tiantian,Deng Boyan,Xu Ting,Wang Guanhua,Hu Weicheng,Si Chuanling
Desalination with solar-driven photothermal evaporator is extremely attractive for tackling the current freshwater shortage of humanity, and a scalable and efficient interfacial solar evaporator is thus highly desirable. In this work, a facile low-cost Janus evaporator with excellent evaporation performance and energy conversion performance was fabricated from potassium hydroxide (KOH)–activated lignin-based carbon (KLC) and commercial melamine foam (MF). The KLC with rich and multiple microscale/nanoscale pores presented high light absorption (90%) and excellent photothermal conversion capacity (up to 60.4 °C) in the full solar spectrum (200–2500 nm). Subsequently, the KLC was simply coated on the upper surface of MF to obtain the self-floating Janus KLC/MF evaporator. The hydrophilic nature and the porous structure of MF ensured sufficient water supply to the evaporation interface and facilitated effective diffusion of water vapor. The solar steam generation test revealed that the water evaporation rate of the Janus KLC/MF under simulated sunlight was 1.539 kg m −2 h −1 , with a superior photothermal conversion efficiency of 95.88%, which is higher than previously reported melamine-framed evaporators. Moreover, the evaporator has an excellent recycling ability and shows a stable water evaporation rate, indicating preferable durability in practical desalination. Overall, this work demonstrates the great potential of using low-cost lignin as a feedstock for the preparation of solar-driven interfacial evaporation systems integrating multiple functionalities for clean water production and thus offers a viable strategy for the application of lignin-based functional materials.
研究领域:
可再生能源
·
材料科学
·
环境工程
·
纳米技术
·
化学工程
✓ 已验证
DOI
高影响因子
SEPARATION AND PURIFICATION TECHNOLOGY
·
2025
·
IF 9
Haorong Li,Haoran Li,Zhengjun Bi,Yuan Chang,Lei Zhang,Xiaojuan Niu,Wenpeng Hong,Xin Meng,Yan Li
Solar-driven interfacial photothermal evaporation stands out as a green and sustainable desalination technology recognized as one of the most promising solutions to the global freshwater crisis. Despite notable progress in evaporation performance, the issue of low clean water production rates remains a pivotal challenge. This work reports a downward solar water production (DSWP) device that employs hydrophobic foam copper to enhance vapor condensation, utilizing a non-breathable Janus evaporator (NBJE) with an evaporation rate of 1.45 kg m −2 h −1 and a solar thermal conversion efficiency of 96 %. The NBJE is uniquely designed to allow vapor diffusion downward and condense within the bottom aluminum alloy condenser, effectively solving the light loss caused by top condensation droplets in traditional solar stills. Additionally, an HCF was embedded in the bottom condenser of the device, increasing vapor condensation sites and promoting the accumulation of liquid on its condensation surface, thereby eliminating the influence of the surface water film formed after vapor condensation on subsequent vapor condensation. By adjusting the position where the HCF was embedded, further optimizes the condensation displacement of vapor diffusion downward, significantly enhancing the efficiency of solar vapor-to-water conversion. Under 1 sun illumination, the DSWP device achieves a water productivity of 0.84 kg m −2 h −1 with a solar vapor-to-water conversion efficiency of 56 %. Series experiments with varying salinities and outdoor testing demonstrate that the DSWP device exhibits remarkable salt resistance and the potential for high-efficiency solar water production. This research provides fresh perspectives on the design of water collection structures for solar-driven interfacial photothermal evaporation, offering a viable solution to the global freshwater shortage.
研究领域:
可再生能源
·
海水淡化技术
·
材料科学
·
太阳能热转换
·
环境工程
✓ 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）