Chemical Engineering Research Center, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China; Tianjin Key Laboratory of Membrane Science and Desalination Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China; State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China.
Laboratory for Synthetic Resin Research, Institution of Petrochemical Technology, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Beijing, 100083, PR China.
Chemosphere. 2021 Aug;277:130248. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.130248. Epub 2021 Mar 15.
The high-efficiency solar evaporation is a potential technique to desalinate hypersaline wastewater and seawater to alleviate the global fresh water shortage. Photo-thermal agent and solar evaporator with low-cost raw materials, high photo-thermal conversion efficiency and simple-fast preparation methods is crucial to realize the industrial application of solar evaporation. Herein, carbon nanomaterial with higher light absorption and photo-thermal conversion efficiency than that of carbon black was obtained by combination treatment of carbon black with oxidation and flash illumination. In order to characterize the evaporation performance of the devices, a floating evaporator was fabricated with the carbon nanomaterial on the top of polyethylene foam wrapped with non-woven fabrics. The evaporation rate and photo-thermal conversion efficiency of evaporators were affected significantly by environmental temperature and humidity. At the environmental temperature of 19.5 °C, the evaporator fabricated with the combined treated carbon nanomaterial as photo-thermal agents presents a stable evaporation rate at 1.27 kg m h and solar evaporation efficiency at 78.7% under 1 kW m simulated sun illumination, which are higher than those of evaporator with carbon black (1.13 kg m h and 68.1%). The distilled water obtained from the solar evaporator met the standards of drinkable water. Overall, the experimental result demonstrates a great promise application of treated carbon nanomaterial as a photo-thermal agent in the field of seawater desalination and solar-energy collector.
高效太阳能蒸发是淡化高盐废水和海水以缓解全球淡水短缺的一种有潜力的技术。具有低成本原料、高光热转换效率和简单快速制备方法的光热剂和太阳能蒸发器对于实现太阳能蒸发的工业应用至关重要。在此，通过对炭黑进行氧化和闪光照射的组合处理，获得了一种比炭黑具有更高吸光率和光热转换效率的碳纳米材料。为了表征器件的蒸发性能，用碳纳米材料在包裹无纺布的聚乙烯泡沫顶部制备了一个浮动蒸发器。蒸发器的蒸发速率和光热转换效率受环境温度和湿度的影响显著。在环境温度为 19.5°C 的情况下，在 1kW/m 模拟太阳光照射下，用组合处理的碳纳米材料作为光热剂制备的蒸发器的稳定蒸发速率为 1.27kg·m-2·h-1，太阳能蒸发效率为 78.7%，高于炭黑蒸发器的蒸发速率（1.13kg·m-2·h-1）和太阳能蒸发效率（68.1%）。太阳能蒸发器获得的蒸馏水符合饮用水标准。总的来说，实验结果表明，经处理的碳纳米材料作为光热剂在海水淡化和太阳能集热器领域具有很大的应用前景。
