Zhao Mang, Hu Chen, Liu Ji, Han Meng-Yan, Pan Rui-Jie, Yu Zhong-Zhen, Li Xiaofeng
Beijing Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, People's Republic of China.
State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, People's Republic of China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 Oct 18;15(41):48196-48206. doi: 10.1021/acsami.3c10235. Epub 2023 Oct 6.
Solar evaporators have the advantages of not consuming fossil fuels, being environmentally friendly, and nonpolluting, offering a promising sustainable method to obtain fresh water and alleviate the worldwide freshwater shortage crisis. In this work, we report that high-performance solar evaporators can be facilely fabricated by processing a cost-effective polypyrrole (PPy)-coated nonwoven fabric (PCNF) into a three-dimensional (3D) spiral structure and introducing side channels for vapor escape. The coated PPy layer ensures excellent photothermal properties and the chemical stability of the evaporator. Meanwhile, the as-created spiral structure of the evaporator can significantly increase the effective evaporation area and harvest energy from the environment, greatly stimulating the evaporation. The side opening channels can effectively facilitate the escape of vapor generated inside the 3D spiral structure, avoid the internal vapor accumulation, and ultimately promote the evaporation of the inner surface, leading to a boost of the evaporation performance. Combining these features, the resulting evaporator exhibits an ultrahigh evaporation rate of 3.26 kg m h and an energy efficiency of 138% under 1-sun irradiation. More importantly, we show that this evaporator can also be used to collect fresh water from soil and sand, demonstrating its great applicability for obtaining potable water in arid areas.
太阳能蒸发器具有不消耗化石燃料、环保且无污染的优点，为获取淡水和缓解全球淡水短缺危机提供了一种有前景的可持续方法。在这项工作中，我们报告了通过将具有成本效益的聚吡咯（PPy）涂层无纺布（PCNF）加工成三维（3D）螺旋结构并引入用于蒸汽逸出的侧通道，可以轻松制造出高性能太阳能蒸发器。涂覆的PPy层确保了蒸发器优异的光热性能和化学稳定性。同时，蒸发器所形成的螺旋结构可以显著增加有效蒸发面积并从环境中收集能量，极大地促进蒸发。侧开口通道可以有效地促进3D螺旋结构内部产生的蒸汽逸出，避免内部蒸汽积聚，并最终促进内表面的蒸发，从而提高蒸发性能。结合这些特性，所得蒸发器在1个太阳光照下表现出3.26 kg m² h⁻¹的超高蒸发速率和138%的能量效率。更重要的是，我们表明这种蒸发器还可用于从土壤和沙子中收集淡水，证明了其在干旱地区获取饮用水方面的巨大适用性。
