The different dimensional desalinating evaporator independent on solar absorber available to transferring random spectrum into full-wavelength solar utilization

Abstract

Up to now, nearly all of the photo-thermal interfacial evaporator reported before are dependent onto the photothermal materials of which the photo-thermal mechanism are various degrees of profound. These complicated mechanisms inevitably bring about multiple challenges that limit the practical application of desalination in potential. To break through the limitation, an photothermal materials-independent strategy is proposed, and the evaporator was constructed accordingly in this work. By the optical mechanisms that are only the muti-reflecting and re-absorbing, superior and broadband absorbance of 92% and 96% over full-wavelength of solar spectrum can be achieved by our fabricated 2D and 3D evaporator with just white cloth, suction rope, PVC pipe and eps foam as the mere constituent part. By rational dividing the solar absorption and evaporative interface, the matter that salt formation impeding the solar utilization can be wisely converted to benefit for recovery and utilization of deposited salt in the fabricated 2D device. In addition, evaporation area index (EAI) value of 3D device assembled with 9 layers of white cotton cloth can reach 54, which corresponds to a high evaporation rate of 6.58 kg m−2 h−1.