División de Materiales Avanzados, Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica A. C., 78216, San Luis Potosí, SLP, Mexico; Tecnológico Nacional de México/ITS Zacatecas Occidente, Sombrerete, Zacatecas, 99100, Mexico.
Centro de Física Aplicada y Tecnología avanzada, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Juriquilla Querétaro, 76230, Mexico.
Chemosphere. 2024 Feb;350:141030. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.141030. Epub 2023 Dec 26.
Corncob (CC) based solar evaporators were employed to desalinize seawater brought from the Vallarta coast in Mexico. The pure CC produced an evaporation-rate and evaporation-efficiency of 0.63 kg m h and 38.4%, respectively, under natural solar light. Later, the CC was coated with carbonized CC (CCCE evaporator) or was coated with graphene (CCGE evaporator). Those evaporators were used for the desalination of seawater and obtained higher evaporation rates of 1.59-1.67 kg m h, and higher evaporation efficiencies of 92-94% (under natural solar light). The desalination experiments were repeated under artificial solar light and the evaporation-rates/evaporation-efficiencies slightly decreased to 1.43-1.52 kg m h/88-92%. The surface analysis of the evaporators by FTIR, XPS and Raman revealed that the CCGE evaporator had on its surface a lower content of defects and a higher amount of OH groups than the CCCE evaporator. Therefore, the CCGE evaporator had higher evaporation-rates/evaporation-efficiencies in comparison with the CCCE evaporator. Furthermore, we purified water contaminated with three different herbicides (fomesafen, 2-6 dichlorobenzamide and 4-chlorophenol at 30 ppm) by evaporation and using natural solar light. Interestingly, the CCCE and CCGE evaporators also removed the herbicides by physical adsorption with efficiencies of 12-22.5%. Moreover, the CCGE evaporator removed vegetable oil from contaminated water by adsorption and its maximum adsorption capacity was 1.72 g/g. Overall, our results demonstrated that the corncob-based evaporators studied here are a low-cost alternative to obtain clean water under natural solar light and this one was more effective for the desalination of seawater than the artificial sunlight (Xe lamp).
以玉米芯 (CC) 为基础的太阳能蒸发器被用于淡化从墨西哥瓦拉塔海岸带来的海水。在自然光下，纯 CC 的蒸发率和蒸发效率分别为 0.63 kg m h 和 38.4%。后来，CC 被碳化 CC（CCCE 蒸发器）或石墨烯（CCGE 蒸发器）涂层。这些蒸发器用于海水淡化，获得了更高的蒸发率 1.59-1.67 kg m h，更高的蒸发效率 92-94%（在自然光下）。在人工太阳光照下重复进行脱盐实验，蒸发率/蒸发效率略有下降至 1.43-1.52 kg m h/88-92%。通过傅里叶变换红外光谱 (FTIR)、X 射线光电子能谱 (XPS) 和拉曼光谱对蒸发器表面进行分析，发现 CCGE 蒸发器表面的缺陷含量较低，OH 基团较多，而 CCCE 蒸发器表面的缺陷含量较高，OH 基团较少。因此，CCGE 蒸发器的蒸发率/蒸发效率高于 CCCE 蒸发器。此外，我们使用自然太阳光照通过蒸发来净化受三种不同除草剂（甲磺草胺、2-6 二氯苯甲酰胺和 4-氯苯酚，浓度为 30 ppm）污染的水。有趣的是，CCCE 和 CCGE 蒸发器还通过物理吸附去除了 12-22.5%的除草剂。此外，CCGE 蒸发器通过吸附去除了受污染水中的植物油，其最大吸附容量为 1.72 g/g。总的来说，我们的结果表明，这里研究的玉米芯基蒸发器是一种在自然光下获得清洁水的低成本替代方案，它在海水淡化方面比人工阳光（氙灯）更有效。
