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Arch-Bridge Photothermal Fabric with Efficient Warp-Direction Water Paths for Continuous Solar Desalination

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Abstract

The interfacial solar evaporator is a key technology for eco-friendly desalination, playing a crucial role in alleviating the global water scarcity crisis. However, limitation of photothermal water evaporation efficiency persists due to inadequate water transfer at the water-steam interface. Herein, we present a new type of scalable and recyclable arch bridge photothermal fabric with efficient warp-direction water paths by a convenient shuttle-flying weaving technique. Compared to the previous overall layer-by-layer assembled fabric, our photothermal fabric precisely constructed effective water paths and achieved excellent water-heat distribution at the solar evaporation interface, which greatly improved the photothermal conversion efficiency and evaporation rate. By the design of the weaving process, the photothermal fabric shows a new interface contact mode of the water path fiber and polyaniline photothermal fiber. Besides, the arch-bridge type design not only minimizes heat loss area but also enhances the water evaporation area, resulting in high-efficiency all-weather available solar water evaporation. Furthermore, the results show that the temperature, evaporation rate and solar-vapor conversion efficiency of photothermal fabric can reach above 123 ℃, 2.31 kg m−2 h−1 and 99.93% under a solar illumination of 1 kW m−2. The arch-bridge photothermal fabric with an excellent water evaporation rate has been successfully established, which provides a new paradigm for improving the sustainable seawater desalination rate.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Research was supported by the Research Initiated Project of Chengdu University (2081921027); the Key Laboratory of Materials and Surface Technology, Ministry of Education (NO.xxx-2023-yb010); the Bureau of Science & Technology and Intellectual Property Nanchong City (22SXZRKX0017), and the North Sichuan Medical College (CBY22-ZDA07, CBY21-QD-04); National Natural Science Foundation of China (52205182).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Chengdu University, Chengdu, 610106, China

    Yuxin Yang, Daiyi Wang, Wenxi Liao, Haoyue Zeng, Yujian Wu, Luxin Li, Wei Feng, Jiaqi Chen, Yanyan Huang & Pan Wang

  2. School of Pharmacy and Institute of Pharmacy, North Sichuan Medical College, Sichuan, 637100, China

    Hongbin Cao, Yanyan Zheng, Jun Liu & Huang Zhou

  3. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Key Laboratory of Chemical Process for Clean Energy and Resource Utilization of Chongqing, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, China

    Jie Xue & Xing Fan

  4. Key Laboratory of Materials and Surface Technology (Ministry of Education), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xihua University, Chengdu, 610039, Sichuan, China

    Yuxin Yang & Muchun Guo

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  1. Yuxin Yang
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Contributions

YXY and DYW: Writing – original draft, Investigation, Data curation, Visualization. WXL, HYZ, YJW and LXL: Data curation, Visualization. WF, JX and HBC: Investigation, Visualization. JQC, YYH and YYZ: Investigation, Data curation. PW and JL: Data curation. MCG: Project administration. HZ: Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing. XF: Visualization, Writing – review & editing.

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Correspondence to Yuxin Yang, Huang Zhou or Xing Fan.

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Yang, Y., Wang, D., Liao, W. et al. Arch-Bridge Photothermal Fabric with Efficient Warp-Direction Water Paths for Continuous Solar Desalination. Adv. Fiber Mater. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42765-024-00392-x

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