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Zhao Z, Wang C, Wei D, Hu Q, Tan P, Wang F, Xie Y, Zhang W, Zhang J. Tortuosity Engineering of Water Channels to Customized Water Supply for Enhancing Hydrogel Solar Evaporation. SMALL (WEINHEIM AN DER BERGSTRASSE, GERMANY) 2024:e2402482. [PMID: 38855997 DOI: 10.1002/smll.202402482] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2024] [Revised: 05/27/2024] [Indexed: 06/11/2024]
Abstract
Hydrogel as a solar evaporator shows great potential in freshwater production. However, hydrogels often lead to an imbalance between solar energy input and water supply management due to their excessively high saturated water content. Thus, achieving a stable water-energy-balance in hydrogel evaporators remains challenging. Here, by tortuosity engineering designed water transport channels, a seamless high-tortuosity/low-tortuosity/high-tortuosity structured hydrogel (SHLH structure hydrogel) evaporator is developed, which enables the hydrogel with customized water transport rate, leading to the controlled water supply at the evaporator interface. An excellent equilibrium between the photothermal conversion and water supply is established, and the maximum utilization of solar energy is realized, thereby achieving an excellent evaporation rate of 3.64 kg m-2 h-1 under one solar illumination. This tortuosity engineering controlled SHLH structured evaporator provides a novel strategy to attain water-energy-balance and expands new approaches for constructing hydrogel-based evaporators with tailored water transportation capacity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zexiang Zhao
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Green Preparation and Functionalization for Inorganic Materials, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710021, China
| | - Chengbing Wang
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Green Preparation and Functionalization for Inorganic Materials, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710021, China
| | - Dan Wei
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Green Preparation and Functionalization for Inorganic Materials, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710021, China
| | - Qinxue Hu
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Green Preparation and Functionalization for Inorganic Materials, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710021, China
| | - Puxin Tan
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Green Preparation and Functionalization for Inorganic Materials, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710021, China
| | - Fan Wang
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Green Preparation and Functionalization for Inorganic Materials, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710021, China
| | - Yunong Xie
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Green Preparation and Functionalization for Inorganic Materials, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710021, China
| | - Wenhe Zhang
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Green Preparation and Functionalization for Inorganic Materials, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710021, China
| | - Jing Zhang
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Green Preparation and Functionalization for Inorganic Materials, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710021, China
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Ge Y, Wang L, Su Z, Ivan MNAS, Wang C, Han K, Tsang YH, Xu S, Bai G. Efficient Solar-Driven Interfacial Water Evaporator using Hydrogel Modified Carbon-Based Biomass with Abundant Microchannels. SMALL (WEINHEIM AN DER BERGSTRASSE, GERMANY) 2024:e2309780. [PMID: 38433392 DOI: 10.1002/smll.202309780] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2023] [Revised: 02/03/2024] [Indexed: 03/05/2024]
Abstract
The conventional sea water desalination technologies are not yet adopted worldwide, especially in the third world countries due to their high capital cost as well as large energy requirement. To solve this issue in a sustainable way an interfacial solar water evaporation device is designed and proposed in this article using the branches of Prunus serrulata (PB). The PB has abundant microchannels and shows excellent photothermal conversion capability after carbonization. Moreover, the easy access to raw materials and the facile fabrication process makes the solar water evaporating device very cost effective for seawater desalination application. Experiments show that in the presence of the fabricated evaporator the evaporation rate of water can reach 3.5 kg m-2 h-1 under 1 sun, which is superior to many similar experimental devices. In addition, its advantages, such as effective sewage purification capability, low cost, and environmental friendliness, make this evaporator highly competitive in the extensive promotion of this technology and can be considered as a new sustainable solution for seawater desalination with great application potential and prospects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yumeng Ge
- Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Optoelectronic Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, College of Optical and Electronic Technology, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China
| | - Le Wang
- Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Optoelectronic Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, College of Optical and Electronic Technology, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China
| | - Zewen Su
- Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Optoelectronic Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, College of Optical and Electronic Technology, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China
| | - Md Nahian Al Subri Ivan
- Department of Applied Physics and Photonics Research Institute, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
| | - Congcong Wang
- Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Optoelectronic Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, College of Optical and Electronic Technology, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China
| | - Keyu Han
- Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Optoelectronic Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, College of Optical and Electronic Technology, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China
| | - Yuen Hong Tsang
- Department of Applied Physics and Photonics Research Institute, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
| | - Shiqing Xu
- Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Optoelectronic Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, College of Optical and Electronic Technology, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China
| | - Gongxun Bai
- Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Optoelectronic Materials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, College of Optical and Electronic Technology, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China
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Zhang D, Zhang S, Liang Q, Guan M, Zhang T, Chen S, Wang H. A Tent-Inspired Portable Solar-Driven Water Purification Device for Wilderness Explorers. SMALL (WEINHEIM AN DER BERGSTRASSE, GERMANY) 2024:e2311731. [PMID: 38321844 DOI: 10.1002/smll.202311731] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2023] [Revised: 01/19/2024] [Indexed: 02/08/2024]
Abstract
Wilderness adventure favored by many enthusiasts often endanger lives due to lacking freshwater or drinking contaminated water. Therefore, compared to the inefficient methods of filtration, steaming, and direct solar heating, it is of great meaningfulness to develop a solar-driven water purification device with efficiency, lightweight, portability, and multi-water-quality purification by taking full advantage of solar-driven interfacial evaporation. Here, a tent-inspired portable solar-driven water purification device consisting of Janus-structured bacterial cellulose aerogel (JBCA) solar evaporator and tent-type condensation recovery device is reported. For the JBCA solar evaporator, it is prepared from biomass bacterial cellulose (BC) as raw material and hydroxylated carbon nanotubes (HCNT) as photothermal material, and the Janus property is achieved by the assistance of hydrophobic and hydrophilic chemical cross-linking. It exhibits lightweight, unibody, high photothermal conversion, efficient evaporation, and multi-water-quality purification capability for representative seawater, urine, and bacterial river water. For the tent-type condensation recovery device, it is based on the prototype of tent and uses flexible ultra-transparent polyvinyl chloride (PVC) film as raw material. Thanks to the rational prototype and material selection, it displays outstanding portability and lightweight through the folding/unfolding method. Therefore, the designed tent-inspired portable solar-driven water purification device demonstrates great potential application in wilderness exploration.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dong Zhang
- State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, P. R. China
| | - Shengming Zhang
- State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, P. R. China
| | - Qianqian Liang
- State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, P. R. China
| | - Mengyao Guan
- State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, P. R. China
| | - Tao Zhang
- State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, P. R. China
| | - Shiyan Chen
- State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, P. R. China
| | - Huaping Wang
- State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, P. R. China
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