Hierarchical structure design of sea urchin Shell-Based evaporator for efficient omnidirectional Solar-Driven steam generation

Meng Xia; Shuyang Hu; Wenqi Luo; Yang Guo; Peng Zhao; Jiakai Li; Guiqiu Li; Lulu Yan; Wei Huang; Meng Li; Juanxiu Xiao; Yijun Shen; Qi Chen; Dong Wang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.04.029

Hierarchical structure design of sea urchin Shell-Based evaporator for efficient omnidirectional Solar-Driven steam generation

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Aug:643:247-255. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.04.029. Epub 2023 Apr 10.

Authors

Meng Xia¹, Shuyang Hu¹, Wenqi Luo¹, Yang Guo¹, Peng Zhao¹, Jiakai Li¹, Guiqiu Li¹, Lulu Yan¹, Wei Huang¹, Meng Li², Juanxiu Xiao¹, Yijun Shen³, Qi Chen⁴, Dong Wang⁵

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Key Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering of Hainan Province, School of Biomedical Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, P. R. China.
² MOE Key Laboratory of Low-grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems, CQU-NUS Renewable Energy Materials & Devices Joint Laboratory, School of Energy & Power Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, PR China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Key Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering of Hainan Province, School of Biomedical Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, P. R. China. Electronic address: yshen2000@163.com.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Key Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering of Hainan Province, School of Biomedical Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, P. R. China. Electronic address: chenqi@hainanu.edu.cn.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Key Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering of Hainan Province, School of Biomedical Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, P. R. China. Electronic address: wangdong@hainanu.edu.cn.

PMID: 37060700
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.04.029

Abstract

Solar-driven steam generation (SSG) is regarded as a feasible solution to the problem of fresh water scarcity. Although several attempts have been devoted to increase the efficiency of solar-to-steam conversion, it remains difficult to fabricate cost-effective, steady, and multi-angle sunlight-absorbing evaporators from readily available biomass materials. Herein, a novel hierarchical structured SSG evaporator (PDA@Shell-NaClO) is developed through a simple, low-cost, and scalable etching treatment on discarded sea urchin (SU) shells. Attributing to the dedicatedly designed microneedles array structure and porous skeleton structure of the SU shell, this PDA@Shell-NaClO evaporator shows an outstanding average light absorption performance (>90%) in a broad range of angles from 0° to 60° and exceedingly high evaporation rate of 2.81 kg m^-2 h^-1 under one sun condition. Furthermore, the prepared evaporator also maintains an overall stable evaporation performance and exhibits an excellent durability for a long time of up to two weeks in actual seawater. This full-ocean biomass-based SSG evaporator with plentiful raw material availability offers innovative opportunities for large-scale fresh water production.

Keywords: Biomass-Based Materials; Microneedles Array Structure; Omnidirectional Light Absorption; Solar-Driven Steam Generation.