Enhanced
Solar-to-Heat Efficiency of Photothermal
Materials Containing an Additional Light-Reflection Layer for Solar-Driven
Interfacial Water Evaporation
posted on 2021-03-12, 00:03authored byYukang Fan, Zhuoyue Tian, Fei Wang, Jingxian He, Xingyun Ye, Zhaoqi Zhu, Hanxue Sun, Weidong Liang, An Li
Solar-driven
interfacial evaporation integrating inexhaustible
solar energy and abundant seawater to address the scarcity of freshwater
is a green and sustainable solution, but its industrial application
remains challenging. Herein, a solar-utilizing device with a light-reflection
layer was first proposed and fabricated for the improvement of light
absorption as an efficient solar-driven interfacial salt-resistance
evaporator, which consists of reduced graphene oxide-modified melamine
sponge (rGOMS) (light-absorption layer) and aluminum foil (light-reflection
layer). The strategy endows the assembled evaporator with high broadband
light absorption (6.5% higher than that of the evaporator without
a reflective layer), superior thermal insulation (0.0148 W m–1 K–1 in dry state), and continuous water transportation.
Furthermore, the melamine sponge-based evaporator with a three-dimensional
network structure (porosity of 99%) exhibits stable salt-resistance
performance even in 20 wt % brine. As a result, the as-prepared evaporator
(rGOMS-Re) has the merits of facile fabrication, durability, high
cost-efficiency, and a stable photothermal evaporation efficiency
of 87.5% under 1 kW m–2 illumination (12.2% higher
than that of the evaporator without a reflective layer) and has promise
to be an ideal candidate for scalable practical application. The strategy
to improve light absorption opens a new and simple route for obtaining
photothermal materials with light loss.