Abstract
Water evaporation systems with solar energy as the primary driving energy have received extensive attention in recent years. This work studies the preparation method and performance of hydrogel evaporators using chitosan and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a framework and carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) as the photothermal material. The evaporation rate of CPC (chitosan/PVA and CNPs) hydrogel obtained reaches 2.28 kg m−2 h−1. Simultaneously, a three-dimensional structure is designed based on the two-dimensional double-layer evaporation system in this study. An evaporator with a tiny-pool structure and a hydrogel with a dome-arrayed structure is designed. These two structures achieve highly efficient evaporation rates of 2.28 kg m−2 h−1 and 3.80 kg m−2 h−1, respectively. These optimized designs improve the evaporation rate of the overall system by ~ 66.7%. The developed evaporation devices provide a promising pathway for developing the double-layer evaporators, which promote the new development of water purification with a solar-driven evaporation system.
Highlights
Researchers are committed to improving the heat absorption rate of light absorber, the ability to trap sunlight on the gas–liquid surface, and the usable surface area of light absorber per unit projection area, as these are key factors in creating a highly effective desalination system
The double layer system consists of a light absorber with broadband absorption performance, a thermal insulation barrier and a hydrophilic water channel to transfer the seawater to the light absorber
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) foam is applied as the heat insulation material in the bottom layer
Summary
Water is the most precious resource for maintaining human survival and economic development[1,2]. The double layer system consists of a light absorber with broadband absorption performance, a thermal insulation barrier and a hydrophilic water channel to transfer the seawater to the light absorber. This system with an excellent evaporation efficiency has been vastly studied. The photothermal conversion absorber receives solar energy from sunlight and heats the water inside the porous structure[9] It requires broadband spectrum absorbing performance and high photothermal conversion efficiency. The main purpose of the heat insulation layer is to trap the thermal energy obtained by the light absorber on the gas–liquid interface This prevents heat diffusion to the bulk water, enhancing the efficiency. Its structure affects the water flow’s direction to the absorbing layer. which indirectly affects the evaporation efficiency
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