Wu, S, Xiong, G, Yang, H, Gong, B, Tian, Y, Xu, C, Wang, Y, Fisher, T, Yan, J, Cen, K et al (show 4 more authors)
(2019)
Multifunctional Solar Waterways: Plasma-Enabled Self-Cleaning Nanoarchitectures for Energy-Efficient Desalination.
Advanced Energy Materials, 9 (30).
p. 1901286.
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Abstract
© 2019 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Evaporating seawater and separating salt from water is one of the most promising solutions for global water scarcity. State-of-the-art water desalination devices combining solar harvesting and heat localization for evaporation using nanomaterials still suffer from several issues in energy efficiency, long-term performance, salt fouling, light blocking, and clean water collection in real-world applications. To address these issues, this work devises plasma-enabled multifunctional all-carbon nanoarchitectures with on-surface waterways formed by nitrogen-doped hydrophilic graphene nanopetals (N-fGPs) seamlessly integrated onto the external surface of hydrophobic self-assembled graphene foam (sGF). The N-fGPs simultaneously transport water and salt ions, absorb sunlight, serve as evaporation surfaces, then capture the salts, followed by self-cleaning. The sGF ensures effective thermal insulation and enhanced heat localization, contributing to high solar-vapor efficiency of 88.6 ± 2.1%. Seamless connection between N-fGPs and sGF and self-cleaning of N-fGP structures by redissolution of the captured salts in the waterways lead to long-term stability over 240 h of continuous operation in real seawater without performance degradation, and a high daily evaporation yield of 15.76 kg m−2. By eliminating sunlight blocking and guiding condensed vapor, a high clean water collection ratio of 83.5% is achieved. The multiple functionalities make the current nanoarchitectures promising as multipurpose advanced energy materials.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | energy conversion materials, plasma graphene fabrication, plasma nanotechnology, self-cleaning, water desalination |
| Depositing User: | Symplectic Admin |
| Date Deposited: | 27 Jun 2019 12:28 |
| Last Modified: | 18 Sep 2023 18:05 |
| DOI: | 10.1002/aenm.201901286 |
| Related URLs: | |
| URI: | https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3047661 |
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