Passive solar high-yield seawater desalination by modular and low-cost distillation
By Eliodoro Chiavazzo, M. Morciano, F. Viglino, Matteo Fasano, Pietro Asinari. Nature Sustainability, 2017
371 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Although seawater is abundant, desalination is energy intensive and expensive. Using the Sun as an energy source is attractive for desalinating seawater. Although interesting, current passive devices with no moving parts have unsatisfactory performance when operated with an energy flux lower than 1 kW m−2 (one sun). We present a passive multi-stage and low-cost solar distiller, where efficient energy management leads to significant enhancement in freshwater yield. Each unit stage for complete distillation is made of two hydrophilic layers separated by a hydrophobic microporous membrane, with no other mechanical ancillaries. Under realistic conditions, we demonstrate a distillate flow rate of almost 3 l m−2 h−1 from seawater at less than one sun—twice the yield of recent passive complete distillation systems. Theoretical models also suggest that the concept has the potential to further double the observed distillate rate. In perspective, this system may help satisfy the freshwater needs in isolated and impoverished communities in a sustainable way.Solar desalination is an attractive alternative to energy-intensive conventional seawater desalination. In this study, the authors present a completely passive, multi-stage and low-cost distiller using layers of membranes to achieve a distillate flow rate of almost 3 l m–2 h–1.
Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Water Science and Technology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/87a795c0109e9d4b116163ba1cc00fcfee18357d
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Citations in the corpus
- Emerging investigator series: the rise of nano-enabled photothermal materials for water evaporation and clean water production by sunlight (2018, neutral): “105 In their design, two major features were noteworthy: multiple cycles of latent-heat recovery and separation of the light-adsorption surface and water evaporation surface (Fig.”
- New hydrogel materials for improving solar water evaporation, desalination and wastewater treatment: A review (2020, background): “Recently, solar-driven water evaporation as a classical solar-thermal energy process has been widely examined due to its positive contribution in developing extensive applications such as sterilization [25], water treatment [26], wastewater remediation [27], desalination [28], and steam generation [”