Wang Xu, Liu Qingchang, Wu Siyao, Xu Baoxing, Xu Hangxun
Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China.
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Institute for Nanoscale and Quantum Scientific and Technological Advanced Research, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA.
Adv Mater. 2019 May;31(19):e1807716. doi: 10.1002/adma.201807716. Epub 2019 Mar 28.
Converting solar energy into concentrated heat is very appealing for various applications. Polypyrrole (PPy) is known to possess excellent photothermal property with low thermal conductivity, and thus is an ideal candidate for solar-thermal energy conversion. However, solar-thermal materials based on PPy or other conducting polymers still exhibit limited energy conversion efficiency due to the lack of effective light-trapping schemes. Here, it is demonstrated that multilayer PPy nanosheets with spontaneously formed surface structures such as wrinkles and ridges via sequential polymerization on paper substrates can dramatically enhance broadband and wide-angle light absorption across the full solar spectrum, leading to an impressive solar-thermal conversion efficiency of 95.33%. The intriguing solar-thermal properties and structural features of multilayer PPy nanosheets can be used for solar heating and photoactuators. Meanwhile, when used for solar steam generation, the measured efficiency could achieve ≈92% under one sun irradiation. The hierarchically multilayer structure is mechanically flexible and robust, holding great potential for practical solar energy utilization. This study provides a simple and straightforward approach toward engineering light-weight and thermally insulating polymers into efficient solar-thermal materials for emerging solar energy-related applications.
将太阳能转化为集中热量对于各种应用来说非常具有吸引力。众所周知，聚吡咯（PPy）具有优异的光热性能且热导率低，因此是太阳能-热能转换的理想候选材料。然而，基于PPy或其他导电聚合物的太阳能-热材料由于缺乏有效的光捕获方案，其能量转换效率仍然有限。在此，研究表明，通过在纸质基底上顺序聚合自发形成诸如皱纹和脊等表面结构的多层PPy纳米片，可以显著增强全太阳光谱范围内的宽带和广角光吸收，从而实现令人印象深刻的95.33%的太阳能-热转换效率。多层PPy纳米片引人入胜的太阳能-热性能和结构特征可用于太阳能加热和光致动器。同时，当用于太阳能蒸汽产生时，在一个太阳辐射下测得的效率可达约92%。这种分层多层结构具有机械柔韧性和坚固性，在实际太阳能利用方面具有巨大潜力。本研究提供了一种简单直接的方法，可将轻质且隔热的聚合物设计成用于新兴太阳能相关应用的高效太阳能-热材料。
