Abstract
Nowadays, freshwater shortage, energy crisis and environmental pollution are the three major threats to human beings. Bio-waste is an important source of environmental pollutant emissions and a renewable resource with great potential. Herein, we develop a photothermal material based on bagasse for solar steam generation to relieve the freshwater crisis and mitigate environmental pollution caused by bio-waste. The mainly functional part of the solar-driven steam generator here is bagasse-based photothermal aerogel (B-PTA), which composes of carbonized bagasse (CB) and bagasse-derived cellulose fiber (BDCF). The B-PTA relying on CB can effectively absorb sunlight (~ 95%), resulting in a prominent light-to-heat ability. The B-PTA with DBCF has super-hydrophilicity, water transport and retention ability. Depending on the excellent light absorption and 3D water passageway, the B-PTA gives a water evaporation rate of 1.36 kg m–2 h–1, and achieves a photothermal conversion efficiency of 77.34% under 1-sun illumination (1 kW m–2). The B-PTA shows remarkable stability that the efficiency without significant change after 20 cycles. In addition, the B-PTA can effectively desalt seawater and purify dye wastewater with natural sunlight. Therefore, turning bio-waste into valuable photothermal material for solar steam generation is possible. Due to the merits of low cost, scalability, environmental friendliness, B-PTA has the potential for real-world water purification.Graphical abstract
Highlights
The freshwater shortage, energy crisis, environmental pollution are the three main challenges facing human beings in modern society (Delgado et al 2020; Lewis 2007; Mir and Bicer 2021)
A solar steam generator was manufactured from bio-waste bagasse
carbonized bagasse (CB) was composited with bagasse fiber to form a porous structure, light absorbers and super-hydrophilicity aerogel
Summary
The freshwater shortage, energy crisis, environmental pollution are the three main challenges facing human beings in modern society (Delgado et al 2020; Lewis 2007; Mir and Bicer 2021). Zhang reported carbonized lotus seedpods as solar steam generation without any thermally insulating layer, which exhibited excellent light absorption capacity that is close to 99%, and photothermal conversion efficiency can reach 86.5% under 1-sun irradiation (Fang et al 2018). He presented that the 3D-structured carbonized sunflower head has a high evaporation efficiency of 100.4%, and the evaporation rate can reach up to 1.51 kg m− 2 h− 1 under 1-sun (Sun et al 2020). The solar steam generator can effectively desalt seawater and purify dye wastewater under natural sunlight This strategy of using bagasse as the raw materials to fabricate B-PTA provides an idea of converting bio-waste into valuable materials, and alleviating the environmental pollution. The freely available bio-waste will facilitate the applications of the solar steam generator in the real world
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