Making Interfacial Solar Evaporation of Seawater Faster than Fresh Water
Date
2024
Authors
Yu, H.
Jin, H.
Qiu, M.
Liang, Y.
Sun, P.
Cheng, C.
Wu, P.
Wang, Y.
Wu, X.
Chu, D.
Editors
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Type:
Journal article
Citation
Advanced Materials, 2024; 36(52):e2414045-1-e2414045-11
Statement of Responsibility
Huimin Yu, Huanyu Jin, Meijia Qiu, Yunzheng Liang, Peng Sun, Chuanqi Cheng, Pan Wu, Yida Wang, Xuan Wu, Dewei Chu, Min Zheng, Tong Qiu, Yi Lu, Bin Zhang, Wenjie Mai, Xiaofei Yang, Gary Owens, and Haolan Xu
Conference Name
Abstract
Interfacial solar evaporation-based seawater desalination is regarded as one of the most promising strategies to alleviate freshwater scarcity. However, the solar evaporation rate of real seawater is significantly constricted by the ubiquitous salts present in seawater. In addition to the common issue of salt accumulation on the evaporation surface during solar evaporation, strong hydration between salt ions and water molecules leads to a lower evaporation rate for real seawater compared to pure water. Here a facile and general strategy is developed to reverse this occurrence, that is, making real seawater evaporation faster than pure water. By simply introducing specific mineral materials into the floating photothermal evaporator, ion exchange at air–water interfaces directly results in a decrease in seawater evaporation enthalpy, and consequently achieves much higher seawater evaporation rates compared to pure water. This process is spontaneously realized during seawater solar evaporation. Considering the current enormous clean water production from evaporation-based desalination plants, such an evaporation performance improvement can remarkably increase annual clean water production, benefiting millions of people worldwide.
School/Discipline
Dissertation Note
Provenance
Description
Data source: Supporting information, https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202414045
Access Status
Rights
© 2024 Wiley-VCH GmbH