Cheng Pengfei, Klingenhof Malte, Honig Hauke, Zhang Lei, Strasser Peter, Schaaf Peter, Lei Dangyuan, Wang Dong
Chair Materials for Electrical Engineering and Electronics, Institute of Materials Science and Engineering and Institute of Micro and Nanotechnologies MacroNano, TU Ilmenau, Gustav-Kirchhoff-Str. 5, 98693, Ilmenau, Germany.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Physics, Centre for Functional Photonics, Hong Kong Branch of National Precious Metals Material Engineering Research Centre, and Hong Kong Institute of Clean Energy, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, 999077, China.
Adv Mater. 2025 Feb;37(5):e2415655. doi: 10.1002/adma.202415655. Epub 2024 Dec 5.
Solving the global challenge of freshwater scarcity is of great significance for over one billion people in the world. Solar water evaporation based on plasmonic nanostructures is one of the most promising technologies due to its high efficiency. However, the efficiency of this plasmonic nanostructure-based technology can hardly achieve 100%. Therefore, it is highly desired to develop new solar converters utilizing plasmonic local heating and reasonable structure design to break the limit of solar-to-vapor efficiency for freshwater production. Here, a plasmonic sponge is developed as a solar evaporation converter with excellent full-solar-spectrum absorption, good heat localization performance, and fast evaporation kinetics through 3D nanostructures, achieving a 131% solar-to-vapor efficiency. Distinct from the traditional 2D localized heating-based evaporation and nonmetallic 3D water evaporation, the 3D plasmonic sponge can simultaneously achieve highly efficient local heating and super large water-air interfaces for boosting solar-to-vapor efficiency. The 3D plasmonic sponge can be also used as a universal converter for purifying seawater, metal ion solutions, organic pollutant solutions, and strong acid and strong alkaline solutions. The full-solar-spectrum absorption, high efficiency, and universality in water purification suggest that the novel 3D plasmonic solar converter can bring a significant way to alleviate the crisis of freshwater resources.
解决全球淡水短缺的挑战对世界上超过十亿人口具有重大意义。基于等离子体纳米结构的太阳能水蒸发因其高效率而成为最具前景的技术之一。然而，这种基于等离子体纳米结构的技术效率很难达到100%。因此，迫切需要开发利用等离子体局部加热和合理结构设计的新型太阳能转换器，以突破淡水生产中太阳能到蒸汽效率的限制。在此，通过三维纳米结构开发了一种等离子体海绵作为太阳能蒸发转换器，具有优异的全光谱吸收、良好的热局域化性能和快速的蒸发动力学，实现了131%的太阳能到蒸汽效率。与传统的基于二维局部加热的蒸发和非金属三维水蒸发不同，三维等离子体海绵可以同时实现高效的局部加热和超大的水-空气界面，以提高太阳能到蒸汽的效率。三维等离子体海绵还可以用作净化海水、金属离子溶液、有机污染物溶液以及强酸和强碱溶液的通用转换器。全光谱吸收、高效率和水净化的通用性表明，新型三维等离子体太阳能转换器可以为缓解淡水资源危机带来重要途径。
