Eskafi Aydin F, De Finnda Casey, Garcia Christopher A, Mi Baoxia
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UC Davis, Davis, California 95616, United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2025 Jan 14;59(1):892-901. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.4c08151. Epub 2025 Jan 2.
In this work, we analyzed the effects of mineral scaling on the performance of a 3D interfacial solar evaporator, with a focus on the cations relevant to lithium recovery from brackish water. The field has been rapidly moving toward resource recovery applications from brines with higher cation concentrations. However, the potential complications caused by common minerals in these brines other than NaCl have been largely overlooked. Therefore, in this study, we thoroughly examined the effects of two common cations (calcium and magnesium) on the long-term solar evaporation performance of a 3D graphene oxide stalk. The 3D stalk can achieve an evaporation flux as high as 17.8 kg m h under one-sun illumination, and accumulation of NaCl on the stalk surface has no impact. However, the presence of CaCl and MgCl significantly reduces the evaporative flux even in solutions lacking scale-forming anions. A close examination of scale formation during long-term evaporation experiments revealed that CaCl and MgCl tend to precipitate out within the stalk, thus blocking water transport through the stalk and significantly dropping the evaporation rates. These findings imply that research attention is needed to modify and optimize the internal water transport channels for 3D evaporators. Additionally, we emphasize the importance of testing realistic mixtures─including prominent divalent cations─ and testing long-term operations in interfacial solar evaporation research and investigating approaches to mitigate the negative impacts of divalent cations.
在这项工作中，我们分析了矿物结垢对三维界面太阳能蒸发器性能的影响，重点关注与从微咸水中回收锂相关的阳离子。该领域已迅速朝着从阳离子浓度更高的卤水中进行资源回收应用发展。然而，除氯化钠外，这些卤水中常见矿物所引起的潜在复杂性在很大程度上被忽视了。因此，在本研究中，我们全面研究了两种常见阳离子（钙和镁）对三维氧化石墨烯茎的长期太阳能蒸发性能的影响。这种三维茎在一个太阳光照下可实现高达17.8 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ 的蒸发通量，并且茎表面氯化钠的积累没有影响。然而，即使在缺乏结垢阴离子的溶液中，氯化钙和氯化镁的存在也会显著降低蒸发通量。对长期蒸发实验过程中结垢形成的仔细研究表明，氯化钙和氯化镁倾向于在茎内沉淀，从而阻碍水通过茎的传输并显著降低蒸发速率。这些发现意味着需要研究关注来修改和优化三维蒸发器的内部水传输通道。此外，我们强调在界面太阳能蒸发研究中测试实际混合物（包括重要的二价阳离子）以及测试长期运行并研究减轻二价阳离子负面影响方法的重要性。
