High‐Yield and Low‐Cost Solar Water Purification via Hydrogel‐Based Membrane Distillation

As an eco‐friendly means, solar water purification has attracted substantial research interest regarding material design, system engineering, and energy management. However, the low water yield and relatively high cost essentially restrict its practical potential. Here, a hydrogel‐based ultrathin me...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advanced functional materials 2021-05, Vol.31 (19), p.n/a
Main Authors: Lu, Hengyi, Shi, Wen, Zhao, Fei, Zhang, Wenjing, Zhang, Peixin, Zhao, Chenyang, Yu, Guihua
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air flow
Distillation
Distilled water
Energy consumption
Energy harvesting
Energy management
Hydrogels
Materials science
membrane distillation
Membranes
solar desalination
wastewater treatment
water production
Water purification
Water treatment
Water yield
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Summary:As an eco‐friendly means, solar water purification has attracted substantial research interest regarding material design, system engineering, and energy management. However, the low water yield and relatively high cost essentially restrict its practical potential. Here, a hydrogel‐based ultrathin membrane (HUM) is developed to synergistically coordinate facilitated vapor transfer and environmental energy harvesting for solar‐driven membrane distillation. The evaporation front is directly exposed to an airflow, which fundamentally eliminates the temperature polarization induced energy consumption. As such, the humidity of the output flow is significantly increased, and thus the vapor collection ratio rises to over 80% to achieve a high water yield of 2.4 kg m–2 h–1 under one sun without any energy recycling and cooling accessories. The HUM with a raw material cost of $0.36 m–2 offers a competitive potential cost of freshwater production of about $0.3–1.0 m–3. This work demonstrates a promising membrane distillation strategy based on sustainable energy toward both decentralized water purification and large‐scale water treatment. The insufficient water yield caused by poor vapor management limits the development of solar water purification technologies. A hydrogel‐based ultrathin membrane enables sufficient vapor transfer between the evaporation front and condensation surface, achieving a record high water yield of 2.4 kg m−2 h−1 under one sun without any energy recycling and cooling accessories.
ISSN:1616-301X
1616-3028
DOI:10.1002/adfm.202101036