As the debates on the scarcity of fresh water in the world intensifies, a research team in Singapore has come up with new advancement in the desalination of sea water. The team has come up with highly efficient solar steam generators (SSGs) through the incorporation of sun’s heat to support the team’s stand on water shortage.
Desalination is another method from which there are high chances of getting water for consumption but this process is expensive and consumes a lot of energy. The new technology uses renewable solar energy to emulate the solar water cycle distilling and isolating water. However, traditional methods have a disadvantage that it is difficult to create complex topologies to maximize the surface area needed for high evaporation efficiency.
To this challenge, the researchers suggested the methodology that was inspired by natural trees and the state of the art 3D printing technologies. Their work described in the Applied Physics Reviews explains the development of the novel method for creating high-performance SSGs with the help of functional nanocomposites and multi-jet fusion (MJF) printing technique.
Professor Kun Zhou from Nanyang Technological University, leading the work, said, “We have designed and synthesised SSGs with highly efficient photothermal performance and self-cleaning functions. The used treelike porous architecture promotes the rate of water evaporation and significantly minimises the problem of salt deposit, which will significantly affect the select device performance in the long-term use.”
The operating principle of the technology is in the conversion of solar heat to thermal heat in order to boil seawater. The SSG’s porous structure makes self-clean easy by eliminating salt build-up, thus allowing the tool to work non-stop.
Zhou also emphasized on the speed of the new MJF printing technology stating, “By using the best photothermal fusing agent we can achieve rapid prototyping of very complex features. The new fusing agent, from metal-organic frameworks, enhances the efficiencies of the photothermal conversion of the printed parts.”
In line with the plant transpiration concept, the team’s SSGs have tree-like microstructures, which create a mini tree-like network with excellent heat spreading capabilities. By such a bio-mimicry design, the surface area is created to allow better provision of water and the efficiency of evaporation.
The experiments conducted in the field and experiments in similar circumstances demonstrated that the rate of evaporation is higher in a compare with the expected; nonetheless the water desalinated is still compliant with the satisfactory parameters of drinking water even after using it for some times. Yea, Zhou in his comment said “The outcomes show that the developed technology is fit for use and MJF commercial printers can produce it with ease and at a faster pace with many units in a short span of time.”
However, such an unsustainable tendencies indicate that the above said method has a great applicability in solving supplied problems of freshwater scarcity particularly to those regions with appropriate access to those resources. “The characteristics of our SSGs can be used to supply fresh water through new desalination approaches and technologies and they can be well integrated into other systems and applications as a solar power converter and a water filtration system,” Zhou added.