Journal
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Volume 13, Issue 3, Pages 830-839Publisher
ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY
DOI: 10.1039/c9ee04122b
Keywords
-
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [51976123]
- Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China [51521004]
- Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) LEES Program
- MIT Tata Center for Technology + Design
- US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences [DE-FG02-09ER46577]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Passive vapor generation systems with interfacial solar heat localization enable high-efficiency low-cost desalination. In particular, recent progress combining interfacial solar heating and vaporization enthalpy recycling through a capillary-fed multistage architecture, known as the thermally-localized multistage solar still (TMSS), significantly improves the performance of passive solar desalination. Yet, state-of-the-art experimental demonstrations of solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency are still limited since the dominant factors and the general design principle for TMSS were not well-understood. In this work, we show optimizing the overall heat and mass transport in a multistage configuration plays a key role for further improving the performance. This understanding also increases the flexibility of material choices for the TMSS design. Using a low-cost and free-of-salt accumulation TMSS architecture, we experimentally demonstrated a record-high solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency of 385% with a production rate of 5.78 L m(-2) h(-1) under one-sun illumination, where more than 75% of the total production was collected through condensation. This work not only significantly improves the performance of existing passive solar desalination technologies for portable and affordable drinking water, but also provides a comprehensive physical understanding and optimization principle for TMSS systems.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available