Journal ArticleDOI
Tree-Inspired Design for High-Efficiency Water Extraction.
Mingwei Zhu,Yiju Li,Guang Chen,Feng Jiang,Zhi Yang,Xiaoguang Luo,Yanbin Wang,Steven D. Lacey,Jiaqi Dai,Chengwei Wang,Chao Jia,Jiayu Wan,Yonggang Yao,Amy Gong,Bao Yang,Zongfu Yu,Siddhartha Das,Liangbing Hu +17 more
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TLDR
The tree-inspired design offers an inexpensive and scalable solar energy harvesting and steam generation technology that can provide clean water globally, especially for rural or remote areas where water is not only scarce but also limited by water extraction materials and methods.Abstract:
The solar steam process, akin to the natural water cycle, is considered to be an attractive approach to address water scarcity issues globally. However, water extraction from groundwater, for example, has not been demonstrated using these existing technologies. Additionally, there are major unaddressed challenges in extracting potable water from seawater including salt accumulation and long-term evaporation stability, which warrant further investigation. Herein, a high-performance solar steam device composed entirely of natural wood is reported. The pristine, natural wood is cut along the transverse direction and the top surface is carbonized to create a unique bilayer structure. This tree-inspired design offers distinct advantages for water extraction, including rapid water transport and evaporation in the mesoporous wood, high light absorption (≈99%) within the surface carbonized open wood channels, a low thermal conductivity to avoid thermal loss, and cost effectiveness. The device also exhibits long-term stability in seawater without salt accumulation as well as high performance for underground water extraction. The tree-inspired design offers an inexpensive and scalable solar energy harvesting and steam generation technology that can provide clean water globally, especially for rural or remote areas where water is not only scarce but also limited by water extraction materials and methods.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Full Biomass-Derived Solar Stills for Robust and Stable Evaporation To Collect Clean Water from Various Water-Bearing Media.
TL;DR: This project shines significant light on a facilely fabricated, robust, and efficient solar still, especially designed for urgent priority in wilderness survival, on a universal solar steam-generation device from wasted rice straw for robust clean water production.
Journal ArticleDOI
Stackable nickel–cobalt@polydopamine nanosheet based photothermal sponges for highly efficient solar steam generation
TL;DR: In this article, polydopamine coated nickel-cobalt bimetal (Ni1Co3@PDA) nanosheets were synthesized and employed as photothermal materials for solar steam generation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Continuously Producing Watersteam and Concentrated Brine from Seawater by Hanging Photothermal Fabrics under Sunlight
Journal ArticleDOI
A Janus evaporator with low tortuosity for long-term solar desalination
Rong Hu,Zhang Junqi,Yudi Kuang,Kebing Wang,Xiaoying Cai,Zhiqiang Fang,Wenqi Huang,Gang Chen,Zhongxing Wang +8 more
TL;DR: In this article, the performance of a Janus evaporator based on a SiO2/cellulose nanofiber/carbon nanotube hybrid network with a low tortuosity pore structure for long-term seawater desalination was reported.
Journal ArticleDOI
Evaporation above a bulk water surface using an oil lamp inspired highly efficient solar-steam generation strategy
TL;DR: Inspired by the traditional oil lamp, a solar-steam generation system with the evaporation surface located above the bulk water surface is realized using a cotton strand coated with a photothermal layer of polydopamine as a wick as mentioned in this paper.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
3D self-assembly of aluminium nanoparticles for plasmon-enhanced solar desalination
TL;DR: In this article, a plasmon-enhanced solar desalination device, fabricated by the self-assembly of aluminium nanoparticles into a three-dimensional porous membrane, is demonstrated.
Journal ArticleDOI
Solar steam generation by heat localization
TL;DR: Development of an approach and corresponding material structure for solar steam generation while maintaining low optical concentration and keeping the bulk liquid at low temperature with no vacuum, which provides a novel approach to harvesting solar energy for a broad range of phase-change applications.
Journal ArticleDOI
Water desalination using nanoporous single-layer graphene
Sumedh P. Surwade,Sergei N. Smirnov,Ivan Vlassiouk,Raymond R. Unocic,Gabriel M. Veith,Sheng Dai,Shannon M. Mahurin +6 more
TL;DR: It is shown that single-layer porous graphene can be used as a desalination membrane using an oxygen plasma etching process and exhibits a salt rejection rate of nearly 100% and rapid water transport.
Journal ArticleDOI
Solar Vapor Generation Enabled by Nanoparticles
TL;DR: Solar illumination of broadly absorbing metal or carbon nanoparticles dispersed in a liquid produces vapor without the requirement of heating the fluid volume, enabling important compact solar applications such as sterilization of waste and surgical instruments in resource-poor locations.
Journal ArticleDOI
Wood-Derived Materials for Green Electronics, Biological Devices, and Energy Applications.
Hongli Zhu,Wei Luo,Peter N. Ciesielski,Zhiqiang Fang,Junyong Zhu,Gunnar Henriksson,Michael E. Himmel,Liangbing Hu +7 more
TL;DR: The goal of this study is to review the fundamental structures and chemistries of wood and wood-derived materials, which are essential for a wide range of existing and new enabling technologies.