Water Desalination and Reuse Center, Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.
Nano Lett. 2021 Jun 23;21(12):5068-5074. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c00910. Epub 2021 May 27.
Solar-assisted distillation is considered promising to solve the freshwater supply for off-grid communities. In this work, a passive and flexible multistage membrane distillation (F-MSMD) device is devised to produce freshwater via solar distillation with the latent heat of vapor condensation being recycled to enhance its energy efficiency. By designing a siphon effect, source water is continuously wicked into the evaporation layer and the concentrated brine flows out of the device before reaching saturation, which successfully solves the otherwise challenge of salt accumulation inside the device. To achieve such siphon flow, the recycled paper is prepared from spent copy paper and used as the evaporation layer for efficient water delivery owing to its large pore size and high hydrophilicity. An eight-stage F-MSMD device exhibits a stable clean water production rate at 3.61 kg m h in the newly designed siphon-flow mode. This work provides a green route for designing a solar-assisted distillation device.
太阳能辅助蒸馏被认为是解决离网社区淡水供应问题的有前途的方法。在这项工作中，设计了一种被动式和柔性多级膜蒸馏（F-MSMD）装置，通过太阳能蒸馏生产淡水，利用蒸汽冷凝的潜热进行回收，以提高其能源效率。通过设计虹吸管效应，源水被连续吸入蒸发层，浓缩盐水在达到饱和之前流出装置，成功解决了盐在装置内积累的问题。为了实现这种虹吸管流动，使用用过的复印纸制备再生纸作为蒸发层，由于其大孔径和高亲水性，可实现高效输水。在新设计的虹吸流模式下，八段 F-MSMD 装置的稳定清洁水产量为 3.61 kg m h。这项工作为设计太阳能辅助蒸馏装置提供了一条绿色途径。
