Journal
NANO ENERGY
Volume 50, Issue -, Pages 308-315Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2018.05.042
Keywords
Polydopamine nanofibril; Solar-thermal; Marine polysaccharide; Solar desalination; Solar electric generation
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [51608509, 21474125]
- Chinese 1000 Youth Talent Program
- National Key Technology R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology [2015BAD14B06]
- Postdoctoral Science Foundation [2016M590670]
- Shandong Taishan Youth Scholoar Program
- Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation [JQ201609, ZR2016EEB25]
- Shandong Collaborative Innovation Centre for marine biomass fibre materials and textiles
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High-efficiency solar harvest and solar-thermal conversion have been targeted in modern sustainable energy science for diverse potential applications. However, broad applications with inorganic nanomaterials as solar-nanoheaters have suffered from low conversion efficiency, potential noxiousness and complicated synthesis procedures. Meanwhile, living organisms rely on delicate bio-synthesis of bio-macromolecules to produce organic bio-melanins with optimal nanostructures and solar-thermal properties for survival from harsh environments. Followed by this inspiration, alginate, one marine polysaccharide, is used to alter the polydopamine nanostructures, one artificial bio-melanin, from nanoparticles to high-aspect-ratio nanofibrils (diameter similar to 40 nm and aspect ratio up to 120 nm). During polymerization, alginate not only increases structural order (e.g. pi-pi conjugation) of polydopamine oligomers within their protoparticles, but also leads to linear consolidation of protoparticles. Polydopamine nanofibrils are found to exhibit super absorbance and high solar-thermal conversion efficiency (similar to 86%) in full-range solar spectrum, being superior to conventional polydopamine nano-particles and comparable to graphene and carbon nanotubes. Thus these biological nanofibrils may offer a promising platform for high-efficiency solar-energy harvest applicable in solar evaporative desalination, solar electric power etc.
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