Sunlight-Driven Water Transport via a Reconfigurable Pump

Hongya Geng; Ke Zhou; Jiajia Zhou; Hongyun Ma; Cunjing Lv; Chun Li; Zhiping Xu; Liangti Qu

doi:10.1002/anie.201808835

Sunlight-Driven Water Transport via a Reconfigurable Pump

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2018 Nov 19;57(47):15435-15440. doi: 10.1002/anie.201808835. Epub 2018 Oct 24.

Authors

Hongya Geng¹, Ke Zhou², Jiajia Zhou^{3

4}, Hongyun Ma¹, Cunjing Lv², Chun Li¹, Zhiping Xu², Liangti Qu^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, MOE Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Phosphorus Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P. R. China.
² Applied Mechanics Laboratory, Department of Engineering Mechanics and Center for Nano and Micro Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P. R. China.
³ Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, P. R. China.
⁴ Centre of Soft Matter Physics and Its Applications, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, P. R. China.
⁵ Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials Processing Technology, Ministry of Education of China, State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P. R. China.

PMID: 30311339
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201808835

Abstract

Fast and controllable water transport in microchannels has implications for many applications. A combination of stimuli-responsive asymmetrical changes in the geometry and gradient in the surface wettability offers the possibility to accelerate the transport and realize controllability. Herein, we introduce a meters-long sunlight-powered reconfigurable water pump constructed by tubular poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) premixed with chemically reduced graphene oxide (rGO), in which the inner wall is modified with thermal-sensitive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) hydrogel (PNIPAm). This sunlight-powered water pump delivers a record-high advance speed of 1.5 mm s^-1 and 13.6 kg h^-1 m^-2 under 1.5 sun. Theoretical and experimental results reveal that the remarkable performance results from the synergistic effect of the contact-angle gradient arising from the reversible hydrophilic/hydrophobic switch of PNIPAm and the capillary force arising from the geometric deformation of the microchannel.

Keywords: N-isopropylacrylamide; graphene oxide; microchannels; solar driven; water transport.

Abstract

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