University of Chinese Academy of Sciences , 19 A Yuquan Rd , Shijingshan District, Beijing 100049 , China.
Department of Environmental Engineering , Ningbo University , Ningbo 315211 , China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2019 Mar 20;11(11):10672-10679. doi: 10.1021/acsami.9b00291. Epub 2019 Mar 6.
Solar steam generation is considered to be a promising strategy for sustainable clean water supply. An easily made and robust solar still can practically meet any contingency in wilderness survival, compared to high-cost and delicate solar thermal materials, for example, plasmonic metals, carbon nanotubes, or graphene-based materials. Inspired by rice plants with high transpiration, we develop a universal solar steam-generation device from wasted rice straw for robust clean water production. The upper leaves of rice straw are carbonized and composited with bacterial cellulose to function as a superior light absorber and the lower culms are designed as excellent water pumps. The unique capillary structures and multilevel geometrical structures of the rice culms contribute to their outstanding water pumping capacity for surface evaporation, resulting in an evaporation rate of 1.2 kg m h with 75.8% conversion efficiency. The rice straw-derived solar still has a daily clean water yield of 6.4-7.9 kg m on sunny days and 4.6-5.6 kg m on cloudy days over 14 days of operation. More attention-grabbing aspect is that this evaporation device is applicable to various water-bearing media, for example, sand, soil, and seawater, to collect clean water with a stable evaporation performance, and the unique multilevel structures of the culms make great contribution to the unimpeded water channels. By turning "waste" to "wealth," this project shines significant light on a facilely fabricated, robust, and efficient solar still, especially designed for urgent priority in wilderness survival.
太阳能蒸汽发电被认为是可持续清洁供水的有前途的策略。与高成本和脆弱的太阳能热材料（例如等离子金属、碳纳米管或基于石墨烯的材料）相比，易于制造且坚固的太阳能蒸馏器实际上可以满足野外生存中的任何应急情况。受高蒸腾植物水稻的启发，我们从废弃的稻草中开发出一种通用的太阳能蒸汽发生装置，用于稳健地生产清洁水。稻草的上叶片碳化并与细菌纤维素复合，用作卓越的光吸收剂，而下茎则设计为出色的水泵。水稻茎的独特毛细结构和多层次几何结构有助于其出色的表面蒸发泵送能力，从而实现 1.2 kg m h 的蒸发率和 75.8%的转换效率。在 14 天的运行期间，由稻草衍生的太阳能蒸馏器在晴天每天可产生 6.4-7.9 千克的清洁水，在阴天每天可产生 4.6-5.6 千克的清洁水。更引人注目的是，这种蒸发装置适用于各种含水介质，例如沙子、土壤和海水，以收集具有稳定蒸发性能的清洁水，并且茎的独特多层次结构为畅通无阻的水道做出了巨大贡献。通过将“废物”转化为“财富”，该项目为易于制造、坚固且高效的太阳能蒸馏器带来了显著的启示，特别是为野外生存中的紧急需求而设计。
