Department of Physics and Astronomy, ‡Laboratory for Nanophotonics, §Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, ∥Rice Quantum Institute, ⊥Department of Chemistry, Rice University , Houston, Texas 77005, United States.
Nano Lett. 2014 Aug 13;14(8):4640-5. doi: 10.1021/nl5016975. Epub 2014 Jun 30.
Aqueous solutions containing light-absorbing nanoparticles have recently been shown to produce steam at high efficiencies upon solar illumination, even when the temperature of the bulk fluid volume remains far below its boiling point. Here we show that this phenomenon is due to a collective effect mediated by multiple light scattering from the dispersed nanoparticles. Randomly positioned nanoparticles that both scatter and absorb light are able to concentrate light energy into mesoscale volumes near the illuminated surface of the liquid. The resulting light absorption creates intense localized heating and efficient vaporization of the surrounding liquid. Light trapping-induced localized heating provides the mechanism for low-temperature light-induced steam generation and is consistent with classical heat transfer.
含有光吸收纳米粒子的水溶液最近被证明在太阳光照射下可以高效率地产生蒸汽，即使在大量流体的温度远低于其沸点的情况下也是如此。在这里，我们表明，这种现象是由于分散的纳米粒子多次光散射介导的集体效应。随机定位的纳米粒子既散射光又吸收光，能够将光能集中到液体被照射表面附近的介观体积中。由此产生的光吸收会导致强烈的局部加热和周围液体的高效蒸发。光捕获诱导的局部加热为低温光诱导蒸汽产生提供了机制，并且与经典传热一致。
