Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T23:22:00.576Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Enhancing solar water evaporation with activated carbon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2020

Sai Kiran Hota  and
Gerardo Diaz
Sai Kiran Hota
Affiliation:
School of Engineering, University of California Merced, Merced, CA. 95343
Gerardo Diaz
Affiliation:
School of Engineering, University of California Merced, Merced, CA. 95343
Get access

Abstract

Fresh water production through sustainable approaches such as solar thermal sources is attracting widespread attention. One of the recently developed approaches aims at utilizing black particles to enhance evaporation and steam generation through efficient photo-thermal conversion process in direct solar thermal desalination systems. Activated carbon serves as one such material for meeting the objectives of freshwater production with negligible increments in cost of the overall system. A series of chemical and physical characterizations were performed to explore the possibility of using activated carbon as a stable carbon source. Optical characterization showed granular activated carbon to have 96.35% solar absorptance and its dispersion in water to have less than 1.5% transmittance (absorbance of 1.85) at 100 mg/L concentration. Outdoor experiments were performed at the University of California-Merced in the month of September (2019), with peak irradiation of 0.8 suns. The comparative measurements showed that the total evaporation enhancement was 38% and 100% for granular activated carbon and activated carbon dispersions, respectively, when compared to pure DI water.

Type
Articles
Information
MRS Advances , Volume 5 , Issue 50: Energy, Storage and Conversion , 2020 , pp. 2565 - 2574
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Mathioulakis, E., Belessiotis, V. and Delyannis, E., "Desalination by using alternative energy: Review and state-of-the-art,," Desalination, 203 (1-3), 346-365 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jin, H., Lin, G., Bai, L., Zeiny, A. and Wen, D., "Steam generation in a nanoparticle-based solar receiver," Nano Energy, 28, 397-406 (2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ishii, S., Sugavaneshwar, R. P., Chen, K., Dao, T. D. and Nagao, T., "Solar water heating and vaporization with silicon nanoparticles at mie resonances," Optical Society of America, 6 (2), 640-648 (2016).Google Scholar
Hou, B., Cui, Z., Zhu, X., liu, X., Wang, G., Wang, J., Mei, T., Li, J. and Wang, X., "Functionalized carbon materials for efficient solar steam and electricity generation," Materials Chemistry and Physics, 222, 159-164 (2019).10.1016/j.matchemphys.2018.10.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fang, Z., Jiao, S., Wang, B., Yin, W. and Pang, G., "A Flexible, Self-Floating Composite for Efficient Water Evaporation," Global Challenges, 3, 1800085 (2019).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ulset, E. T., Kosinski, P. and Balakin, B. V., "Solar steam in an aqueous carbon black nanofluid," Applied Thermal Engineering, 137, 62-65 (2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neumann, O., Urban, A. S., Day, J., Lal, S., Nordlander, P. and Halas, N. J., "Solar Vapor Generation Enabled by Nanoparticles," ACS Nano, 7 (1), 42-49 (2013).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ni, G., Miljkovic, N., Ghasemi, H., Huang, X., Boriskina, S. V., Lin, C.-T., Wang, J., Xu, Y., Rahman, M. M., Zhang, T. and Chen, G., "Volumetric solar heating of nanofluids for direct vapor generation," Nano Energy, 17, 290-301 (2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, X., Wang, X., Hunag, J., Cheng, G. and He, Y., "Volumetric solar steam generation enhanced by reduced grpahene oxide nanofluid," Applied Energy, 220, 302-312 (2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hota, S. K. and Diaz, G., "Activated carbon dispersion as absorber for solar water evaporation: A parametric analysis," Solar Energy, 184, 40-51 (2019).10.1016/j.solener.2019.03.080CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ohri, V. and Vikrant, K., "Using Solar Energy for Water Purification Through Nanoparticles Assisted Evaporation," Journal of Solar Energy Engineering, 141 (1), 011008 (2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, H., He, Y., Hu, Y., Wang, and Xinzhi, , "Commercially Available Activated Carbon FIber Felt Enables Efficient Solar Steam Generation," ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 10, 9362-9368 (2018).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wang, X., He, Y., Liu, X. and Zhu, J., "Enhanced direct steam generation via a bio-inspired solar heating method using carbon nanotube films," Powder Technology, 321, 276-285 (2017).10.1016/j.powtec.2017.08.027CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jiang, Q., Tian, L., Liu, K.-K., Tadepalli, S., Raliya, R., Biswas, P., Naik, R. R. and Singamaneni, S., "Bilayered Biofoam for Highly Efficient Solar Steam Generation," Advanced Materials, 28, 9400-9407 (2016).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wang, Y., Zhang, L. and Wang, P., "Self-Floating Carbon Nanotube Membrane on Macroporous Silica Substrate for Highly Efficient Solar-Driven Interfacial Water Evaporation," ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, 4 (3), 1223-1230 (2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Y., Ravi, S. K., Vaghasiya, J. V. and Tan, S. C., "A Barbeque-Analog Route to Carbonize Moldy Bread for Efficient Steam Generation," iScience, 3, 31-39 (2018).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zhu, M., Yu, J., Ma, C., Zhan, C., Wu, D. and Zhu, H., "Carbonized daikon for high efficient solar steam generation," Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 191, 83-90 (2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xu, N., Hu, X., Xu, W., Li, X., Zhu, S. and Zhu, J., "Mushrooms as Efficient Solar Steam-Generation Devices," Advanced Materials, 29, 1606727 (2017).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Xue, G., Liu, K., Chen, Q., Yang, P., Li, J., Ding, T. D. J., Qi, B. and Zhou, J., "Robust and Low-Cost Flame-Treated Wood for High-Performance Solar Steam Generation," ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 9, 15052-15057 (2017).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coates, J., "Interpretation of Infrared Spectra, A Practical Approach," in Encyclopedia of Analytical Chemistry, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2000, p. 10815-10837.Google Scholar
Purnomo, C. W., Kesuma, E. P., Perdana, I. and Aziz, M., "Lithium recovery spent on Li-ion batteries using coconut shell activated carbon," Waste Management, 79, 454-461 (2018).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zhang, J., Lü, F., Zhang, H., Shao, L., Chen, D. and He, P., "Multiscale visualization of the structural and characteristic changes in sewage sludge biochar oriented towards potential agronomic and environmental implication," Scientific Reports, 5, 9406 (2015).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Manoj, B. and Kunjomana, A. G., "Study of Stacking Structure of Amorphous Carbon by X-Ray Diffraction Technique," International Journal of Electrochemical Sicence, 7, 3127-3134 (2012).Google Scholar
Gaikwad, V. L., Choudhari, P. B., Bhatia, N. M. and Bhatia, M. S., "Chapter 2 - Characterization of pharmaceutical nanocarriers: in vitro and in vivo studies," in Nanomaterials for Drug Delivery and Therapy, William Andrew Publishing, 2019, p. 33-58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hu, G., Cao, Y., Huang, M., Wu, Q., Zhang, K., Lai, X., Tu, J., Tian, C., Liu, J., Huang, W., Ding, L., "Salt-Resistant Carbon Nanotubes/Polyvinyl Alcohol Hybrid Gels with Tunable Water Transport for High-Efficiency and Long-Term Solar Steam Generation", Energy Technology, 8, 1900721 (2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Q., Ren, L., Xiao, X., Chen, Y., Xia, L., Zhao, G., Yang, H., Wang, X., Xu, W., "Vertically aligned Juncus effusus fibril composites for omnidirectional solar evaporation", Carbon, 156, 225-233 (2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hou, Q., Xue, C., Li, N., Wang, H., Chang, Q., Liu, H., Yang, J., Hu, S., "Self-assembly carbon dots for powerful solar water evaporation", Carbon, 149, 556-563 (2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar