Interdisciplinary Research Center of Low-carbon Technology and Equipment, College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha410082, P. R. China.
Qian Xuesen Laboratory of Space Technology, China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), Beijing100094, P. R. China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 Feb 15;15(6):8181-8189. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c21555. Epub 2023 Jan 31.
Water treatment consumes lots of energy from fossil fuels nowadays, and the emission of CO enhances the temperature on earth, resulting in more and more hazards. Thus, clean water production enabled by green energy without CO emission is attracting more and more attention. Herein, we propose a novel solar evaporation system achieving both solar evaporation and water storage with two different unique hydrogels based on a three-dimensional (3D) printing technique. The hydrogel absorber demonstrates an ultrahigh absorptance (98.2%) of solar light, while the water-storage hydrogel absorbs more than 100 times its own weight of water, demonstrating super water-storage performance with strong self-adhesiveness. The solar vapor generation rate can be as high as 3.14 kg·m·h, with a solar evaporation efficiency up to 91.2% irradiated by 1.43 sun. Furthermore, our environmentally friendly solar evaporation system achieves ultrahigh water purification efficiency of 99.99% for salt, heavy ions, and acid/alkaline with remarkable stability and durability. Our solar evaporation system promises long-lasting applications for the hydrological cycle enabled by solar energy, such as seawater desalination, sterilization, wastewater purification, and so on.
目前，水处理消耗大量化石燃料能源，而 CO 的排放会提高地球温度，导致越来越多的危害。因此，利用绿色能源、无 CO 排放生产清洁水越来越受到关注。在此，我们提出了一种基于三维（3D）打印技术的新型太阳能蒸发系统，该系统能够实现太阳能蒸发和储水两种功能。水凝胶吸收剂对太阳光的吸收率高达 98.2%，而储水水凝胶的吸水性超过自重的 100 倍，具有超强的储水性能和强自粘性。太阳能蒸汽产生速率高达 3.14kg·m·h，在 1.43 个太阳照射下的太阳能蒸发效率可达 91.2%。此外，我们的环保太阳能蒸发系统对盐、重金属离子和酸碱的超纯水净化效率高达 99.99%，具有显著的稳定性和耐用性。我们的太阳能蒸发系统有望在太阳能驱动的水文循环中得到长期应用，如海水淡化、杀菌、废水净化等。
