Waterwheel-inspired rotating evaporator for efficient and stable solar desalination even in saturated brine

Hanjin Jiang; Xinghang Liu; Haitao Wang; Dewen Wang; Yanan Guo; Dong Wang; Gang Gao; Xiaoyi Wang; Chaoquan Hu

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2023.07.011

Waterwheel-inspired rotating evaporator for efficient and stable solar desalination even in saturated brine

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2023 Aug 15;68(15):1640-1650. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2023.07.011. Epub 2023 Jul 10.

Authors

Hanjin Jiang¹, Xinghang Liu², Haitao Wang¹, Dewen Wang¹, Yanan Guo³, Dong Wang⁴, Gang Gao⁵, Xiaoyi Wang⁶, Chaoquan Hu⁷

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Superhard Materials, Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials of Ministry of Education, Jilin Provincial International Cooperation Key Laboratory of High-Efficiency Clean Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China.
² School of Fashion and Textiles, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China.
⁴ College of Chemical Engineering, Northeast Electric Power University, Jilin 132012, China. Electronic address: dong.wang@neepu.edu.cn.
⁵ National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, China. Electronic address: gaogang930227@163.com.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Optical System Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130033, China; State Key Laboratory of Applied Optics, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130033, China. Electronic address: wangxiaoyi@163.com.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Superhard Materials, Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials of Ministry of Education, Jilin Provincial International Cooperation Key Laboratory of High-Efficiency Clean Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China; State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China; Key Laboratory of Optical System Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130033, China; State Key Laboratory of Applied Optics, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130033, China. Electronic address: cqhu@jlu.edu.cn.

PMID: 37481437
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2023.07.011

Abstract

Solar desalination is one of the most promising technologies to address global freshwater shortages. However, traditional evaporators encounter the bottleneck of reduced evaporation rate or even failure due to salt accumulation in high-salinity water. Inspired by ancient waterwheels, we have developed an adaptively rotating evaporator that enables long-term and efficient solar desalination in brines of any concentration. The evaporator is a sulphide-loaded drum-type biochar. Our experiments and numerical simulations show that this evaporator, thanks to its low density and unique hydrophilic property, rotates periodically under the center-of-gravity shift generated by salt accumulation, achieving self-removal of salt. This allows it to maintain a high evaporation rate of 2.80 kg m^-2 h^-1 within 24 h even in saturated brine (26.47%), which was not achieved previously. This proof-of-concept work therefore demonstrates a concentration- and time-independent, self-rotation-induced solar evaporator.

Keywords: Adaptively rotating evaporator; Self-removal of salt; Stable solar desalination; Waterwheel-inspired.