Interfacial Engineering of Attractive Pickering Emulsion Gel-Templated Porous Materials for Enhanced Solar Vapor Generation

Energies

Xiaoxiao Yan¹  Li Chen¹  Baiheng Wu¹  Dong Chen¹  Qinglin Wu¹  Fangfu Ye² 

[1] College of Energy Engineering and State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China;Wenzhou Institute, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenzhou 325001, China;

关键词: solar evaporator;    porous material;    emulsion;    gel;    interfacial engineering;   

DOI  :  10.3390/en14196077

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Solar vapor generation is emerging as one of the most important sustainable techniques for harvesting clean water using abundant and green solar energy. The rational design of solar evaporators to realize high solar evaporation performances has become a great challenge. Here, a porous solar evaporator with integrative optimization of photothermal convention, water transport and thermal management is developed using attractive Pickering emulsions gels (APEG) as templated and followed by interfacial engineering on a molecular scale. The APEG-templated porous evaporators (APEG-TPEs) are intrinsically thermal insulation materials with a thermal conductivity = 0.039 W·m⁻¹·K⁻¹. After hydrolysis, t-butyl groups on the inner-surface are transformed to carboxylic acid groups, making the inner-surface hydrophilic and facilitating water transport through the inter-connected pores. The introduction of polypyrrole layer endows the porous materials with a high light absorption of ~97%, which could effectively convert solar irradiation to heat. Due to the versatility of the APEG systems, the composition, compressive modulus, porosity of APEG-TPEs could be well controlled and a high solar evaporation efficiency of 69% with an evaporation rate of 1.1 kg·m⁻²·h⁻¹ is achieved under simulated solar irradiation. The interface-engineered APEG-TPEs are promising in clean water harvesting and could inspire the future development of solar evaporators.

【 授权许可】

Unknown