Solar-powered nanostructured biopolymer hygroscopic aerogels for atmospheric water harvesting

By Mengzhu Wang, Tianmeng Sun, D. Wan, Ming Dai, Shengjie Ling, Jialiang Wang, Yuqiu Liu, Ying Fang, Shuhan Xu, Jingjie Yeo and 7 more. 2021

159 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Solar energy powered sorption-based atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) is a novel strategy for obtaining fresh water in water-scarce regions. The major challenge is to design a cost-effective all-in-one solid bulk sorbent that can capture water from air, even when outdoor conditions are cool, dry, and with low-intensity nature sunlight. Here, we report a strategy comprising solution exchange and lyophilization for integrating a lithium chloride hygroscopic agent, a nanofibrillated cellulose hydrophilic skeleton and a graphene solar absorber, to exploit a solar-powered nanostructured biopolymer hygroscopic aerogel (NBHA) for AWH. The intrinsic porous bilayer structure with interconnected micron- and nano-scale channels of NBHA enables it readily absorb moisture (even at a low relative humidity of ~18%), has a high-water storage capacity, and requires little energy from natural sunlight for solar-driven light-to-vapor conversion. Liquid water was successfully harvested outdoors in natural sunlight of 0.10–0.56 kW m−2 using a facile device based on the NBHA. This work provides a convenient, effective, and practical solution for AWH, even in severe environmental conditions.

Subfields: Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Surfaces, Coatings and Films

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e30a8d1c96e744fc304a80eebfbc042584e3b813