Membranes (Sep 2022)

Optimization of Evaporation and Condensation Architectures for Solar-Driven Interfacial Evaporation Desalination

  • Cheng Pan,
  • Yawei Yang,
  • Mingze Xie,
  • Qingyuan Deng,
  • Xiang Cheng,
  • Xianlei Wang,
  • Shihan Zhao,
  • Yumeng Wei,
  • Wenxiu Que

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes12090899
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 9
p. 899

Abstract

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Solar-driven interfacial evaporation is an ideal technology for seawater desalination, and the corresponding system is mainly composed of a solar evaporator and a condensing collector. The traditional scheme focuses on the evaporation efficiency of the evaporator. Still, it ignores the influence of condensing collection scheme on the overall efficiency, which is one of the obstacles to the practical use of solar seawater desalination. Here, we reported a new solar-driven interfacial evaporation seawater desalination system by studying the influence of the condensation architecture, i.e., vapor flow by a fan and an air pump, sidewall material, transparent cover shape and material, evaporation level, and transparent cover heating, on the apparent collection efficiency of the system. The apparent collection efficiency was up to over 90% after optimization. This study is expected to promote the practical application of solar evaporation desalination technology.

Keywords