TY - JOUR
T1 - CNT–PVDF freestanding sheets for direct solar evaporation toward continuous desalination applications
AU - Alsharief, Arwa
AU - Mustafa, Ibrahim
AU - AlNahyan, Maryam
AU - Alnaqbi, Wafa
AU - Almarzooqi, Faisal
N1 - Funding Information:
“This publication is based upon work supported by the Khalifa University of Science and Technology under Award No. 8474000003.” The authors acknowledge the Cooperative Agreement between the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (Masdar Institute), Abu Dhabi, UAE, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA. The authors acknowledge the support of Applied NanoStructured Solutions LLC, a Lockheed Martin Company, for providing the carbon nanostructured flakes. The authors acknowledge Dr. Georgios Karanikolos at Khalifa University for providing pore analysis measurements. The authors also acknowledge Khalifa University’s Center for Membranes and Advanced Water Technology (CMAT) for the use of their facilities.
Funding Information:
?This publication is based upon work supported by the Khalifa University of Science and Technology under Award No. 8474000003.? The authors acknowledge the Cooperative Agreement between the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (Masdar Institute), Abu Dhabi, UAE, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA. The authors acknowledge the support of Applied NanoStructured Solutions LLC, a Lockheed Martin Company, for providing the carbon nanostructured flakes. The authors acknowledge Dr. Georgios Karanikolos at Khalifa University for providing pore analysis measurements. The authors also acknowledge Khalifa University?s Center for Membranes and Advanced Water Technology (CMAT) for the use of their facilities.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2020/3/1
Y1 - 2020/3/1
N2 - Typically, solar desalination membranes are fabricated through non-scalable techniques and consist of multiple layers (a photo-absorber layer deposited on a hydrophilic substrate), resulting in multistage evaporation processes, influencing the efficiency of the process. Moreover, the classical approach is to test such developed membranes in a batch-mode setup, in which the system is stagnant; motivating the need to investigate their applicability in continuous flow setups to expand on the commercial outreach criteria. Herein, we investigate freestanding, thin, and nanoporous composite membranes for direct solar-assisted evaporation experiments in an in-house-built continuous flow thin-film evaporation device. Our membrane fabrication methodology had three notable advantages: (1) the utilization of blackbody materials, (2) the achievement of variable membrane properties, and (3) the utilization of a single composite freestanding membrane. We show that evaporation mass flux (assisted with 1 sun of direct solar irradiation) increased as mean pore size and membrane thickness decreased, while volume porosity, solar absorption, and wettability increased. Out of all of the membranes investigated, the membrane modified with the least amount of PVDF exhibited the highest evaporation flux (0.55 L m−2 h−1) and the highest solar efficiency (~ 38.4%).
AB - Typically, solar desalination membranes are fabricated through non-scalable techniques and consist of multiple layers (a photo-absorber layer deposited on a hydrophilic substrate), resulting in multistage evaporation processes, influencing the efficiency of the process. Moreover, the classical approach is to test such developed membranes in a batch-mode setup, in which the system is stagnant; motivating the need to investigate their applicability in continuous flow setups to expand on the commercial outreach criteria. Herein, we investigate freestanding, thin, and nanoporous composite membranes for direct solar-assisted evaporation experiments in an in-house-built continuous flow thin-film evaporation device. Our membrane fabrication methodology had three notable advantages: (1) the utilization of blackbody materials, (2) the achievement of variable membrane properties, and (3) the utilization of a single composite freestanding membrane. We show that evaporation mass flux (assisted with 1 sun of direct solar irradiation) increased as mean pore size and membrane thickness decreased, while volume porosity, solar absorption, and wettability increased. Out of all of the membranes investigated, the membrane modified with the least amount of PVDF exhibited the highest evaporation flux (0.55 L m−2 h−1) and the highest solar efficiency (~ 38.4%).
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85075335626
U2 - 10.1007/s10853-019-04217-w
DO - 10.1007/s10853-019-04217-w
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85075335626
SN - 0022-2461
VL - 55
SP - 2860
EP - 2869
JO - Journal of Materials Science
JF - Journal of Materials Science
IS - 7
ER -
SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation
SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy