Chaoji Chen1,2, Yiju Li1, Jianwei Song1, Zhi Yang3, Yudi Kuang1, Emily Hitz1, Chao Jia1, Amy Gong1, Feng Jiang1, J. Y. Zhu4, Bao Yang3, Jia Xie2, Liangbing Hu1
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742 USA
2State Key Laboratory of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and Technology, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, P. R. China
3Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742 USA
4Forest Products Laboratory, USDA Forest Service, Madison, WI 53726, USA
Tóm tắt
Solar steam generation with subsequent steam recondensation has been regarded as one of the most promising techniques to utilize the abundant solar energy and sea water or other unpurified water through water purification, desalination, and distillation. Although tremendous efforts have been dedicated to developing high‐efficiency solar steam generation devices, challenges remain in terms of the relatively low efficiency, complicated fabrications, high cost, and inability to scale up. Here, inspired by the water transpiration behavior of trees, the use of carbon nanotube (CNT)‐modified flexible wood membrane (F‐Wood/CNTs) is demonstrated as a flexible, portable, recyclable, and efficient solar steam generation device for low‐cost and scalable solar steam generation applications. Benefitting from the unique structural merits of the F‐Wood/CNTs membrane—a black CNT‐coated hair‐like surface with excellent light absorbability, wood matrix with low thermal conductivity, hierarchical micro‐ and nanochannels for water pumping and escaping, solar steam generation device based on the F‐Wood/CNTs membrane demonstrates a high efficiency of 81% at 10 kW cm−2, representing one of the highest values ever‐reported. The nature‐inspired design concept in this study is straightforward and easily scalable, representing one of the most promising solutions for renewable and portable solar energy generation and other related phase‐change applications.
