Abstract
Solar desalination is a promising method for producing drinkable water, but salt accumulation on the evaporator surface leads to reduced light absorption. This study presents a nature-inspired self-driven salt-resistant material (NI-SRM) for a salt-free solar desalination system. The introduced material has great porosity to generate desirable capillary force to lift up water to the evaporator surface, which can function as water pumping channels. The concentration of salt solution in the absorber could not achieve saturation and produce salt via solar evaporation during the experiment. The NI-SRM had an evaporation rate of 3.02 kg-m−2 h−1 under 1 sun irradiation and outstanding long-term stability for the desalination of high-salinity brine with no apparent salt deposition. An 80% efficiency was achieved for 24 h under 1 sun (10 kW-m−2). Through control experiments, the multifunctional NI-SRM was found to play a critical role in preventing salt accumulation over the surface under 1 sun. The newly developed NI-SRM had a higher evaporation rate with higher stability in a high-salinity brine solution. The developed material is environmentally friendly and cost-effective.
Highlights
Environmental pollution and its abatement have long been a critical focus of research.The problem of removing pollutants from water and waste water has grown with rapid industrialization
The material was developed in this study for solar water desalination, and it is a mixture of naturally inspired salt-resistance materials (NI-SRMs)
The multifunctional microstructure of the well-sorted NI-SRM (0.154 mm) evaporator was depicted by scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
Summary
The problem of removing pollutants from water and waste water has grown with rapid industrialization. There are several techniques that have been used to promote solar water desalination, such as the long-term stable cost-effective solar desalination method [6], membrane filtration method [7], multistage flashing [8], polyaniline [9], carbon [10,11], adsorption [12,13], precipitation [13], carbon-based materials (e.g., graphene, aerogel, carbon nanotubes, and graphite) [14,15,16], solar-enabled desalination, the activation of coconut carbon [17], and the development of hydrophobic membrane [18]. In a one-step protocol, hydrophobic membranes for desalination and toxic organic pollutant removal were created using polyamide and PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) chemistries. The membrane was created by depositing PPy, a polymeric photothermal substance, onto an SS mesh substrate, modifying the PPy coating with fluoroalkylsilane to achieve desirable hydrophobicity [20]
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