Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
Adv Mater. 2017 Jul;29(26). doi: 10.1002/adma.201700981. Epub 2017 May 4.
Using solar energy to generate steam is a clean and sustainable approach to addressing the issue of water shortage. The current challenge for solar steam generation is to develop easy-to-manufacture and scalable methods which can convert solar irradiation into exploitable thermal energy with high efficiency. Although various material and structure designs have been reported, high efficiency in solar steam generation usually can be achieved only at concentrated solar illumination. For the first time, 3D printing to construct an all-in-one evaporator with a concave structure for high-efficiency solar steam generation under 1 sun illumination is used. The solar-steam-generation device has a high porosity (97.3%) and efficient broadband solar absorption (>97%). The 3D-printed porous evaporator with intrinsic low thermal conductivity enables heat localization and effectively alleviates thermal dissipation to the bulk water. As a result, the 3D-printed evaporator has a high solar steam efficiency of 85.6% under 1 sun illumination (1 kW m ), which is among the best compared with other reported evaporators. The all-in-one structure design using the advanced 3D printing fabrication technique offers a new approach to solar energy harvesting for high-efficiency steam generation.
利用太阳能产生蒸汽是解决水资源短缺问题的一种清洁、可持续的方法。目前，太阳能蒸汽产生的挑战在于开发易于制造和可扩展的方法，以将太阳能辐射转化为高效利用的可用热能。尽管已经报道了各种材料和结构设计，但在太阳能照射下，高效率的太阳能蒸汽产生通常只能实现。首次使用 3D 打印技术构建具有凹形结构的一体式蒸发器，以在 1 个太阳光照下实现高效太阳能蒸汽产生。太阳能蒸汽产生装置具有高孔隙率（97.3%）和高效宽带太阳能吸收（>97%）。具有固有低热导率的 3D 打印多孔蒸发器可实现热量定位，并有效缓解向体相水的热耗散。因此，3D 打印蒸发器在 1 个太阳光照（1 kW m ）下的太阳能蒸汽效率为 85.6%，与其他报道的蒸发器相比，处于较高水平。使用先进的 3D 打印制造技术的一体式结构设计为高效蒸汽产生的太阳能收集提供了一种新方法。
