Solar steam generation enabled by bubbly flow nanofluids

Abstract

Plasmonic nanofluids are recently explored to promote steam generation, showing great promise of such fluids for solar thermal applications. However, plasmonic nanoparticles are opaque and the nanofluids require high mass concentration to achieve efficient evaporation, which in turn leads to parasitic light absorption for the underlying particles. In this work, we introduce bubbles into dilute plasmonic nanofluids to enhance solar water evaporation. The dynamic bubbles not only act as light scattering centers to extend the incident light pathway and amplify solar flux, but also provide large gas-liquid interfaces for moisture capture as well as kinetic energy from bubble bursting to improve vapor diffusion. The coupling effect between plasmonic heating and bubbly-flow humidification results in a steam generation rate of 0.72 kg m−2 h−1 under two-sun, which is about three-time higher than that of the pure water. A series of experiments under different light intensities, concentration of nanofluids, gas flow rates as well as photothermal materials such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles are also conducted to verify the concept. It is concluded that all the nanofluids enhance the steam generation process, and the bubbly flow nanofluids can be further improved the performance. This work provides an original insight on the bubbly flow nanofluids for solar vapor generation, and stands for a basis to design scalable solar evaporators from accessible raw materials.