Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation

Wenbin Wang; Yusuf Shi; Chenlin Zhang; Seunghyun Hong; Le Shi; Jian Chang; Renyuan Li; Yong Jin; Chisiang Ong; Sifei Zhuo; Peng Wang

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-10817-6

Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation

Wenbin Wang
, Yusuf Shi
, Chenlin Zhang
, Seunghyun Hong
, Le Shi
, Jian Chang
, Renyuan Li
, Yong Jin
, Chisiang Ong
, Sifei Zhuo
, Peng Wang

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

441 Scopus citations

Abstract

The energy shortage and clean water scarcity are two key challenges for global sustainable development. Near half of the total global water withdrawals is consumed by power generation plants while water desalination consumes lots of electricity. Here, we demonstrate a photovoltaics-membrane distillation (PV-MD) device that can stably produce clean water (>1.64 kg·m⁻²·h⁻¹) from seawater while simultaneously having uncompromised electricity generation performance (>11%) under one Sun irradiation. Its high clean water production rate is realized by constructing multi stage membrane distillation (MSMD) device at the backside of the solar cell to recycle the latent heat of water vapor condensation in each distillation stage. This composite device can significantly reduce capital investment costs by sharing the same land and the same mounting system and thus represents a potential possibility to transform an electricity power plant from otherwise a water consumer to a fresh water producer.

Original language	British English
Article number	3012
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	10
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10817-6
State	Published - 1 Dec 2019

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation
SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy

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title = "Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation",

abstract = "The energy shortage and clean water scarcity are two key challenges for global sustainable development. Near half of the total global water withdrawals is consumed by power generation plants while water desalination consumes lots of electricity. Here, we demonstrate a photovoltaics-membrane distillation (PV-MD) device that can stably produce clean water (>1.64 kg·m−2·h−1) from seawater while simultaneously having uncompromised electricity generation performance (>11\%) under one Sun irradiation. Its high clean water production rate is realized by constructing multi stage membrane distillation (MSMD) device at the backside of the solar cell to recycle the latent heat of water vapor condensation in each distillation stage. This composite device can significantly reduce capital investment costs by sharing the same land and the same mounting system and thus represents a potential possibility to transform an electricity power plant from otherwise a water consumer to a fresh water producer.",

author = "Wenbin Wang and Yusuf Shi and Chenlin Zhang and Seunghyun Hong and Le Shi and Jian Chang and Renyuan Li and Yong Jin and Chisiang Ong and Sifei Zhuo and Peng Wang",

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AU - Zhang, Chenlin

AU - Hong, Seunghyun

AU - Shi, Le

AU - Chang, Jian

AU - Li, Renyuan

AU - Jin, Yong

AU - Ong, Chisiang

AU - Zhuo, Sifei

AU - Wang, Peng

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AB - The energy shortage and clean water scarcity are two key challenges for global sustainable development. Near half of the total global water withdrawals is consumed by power generation plants while water desalination consumes lots of electricity. Here, we demonstrate a photovoltaics-membrane distillation (PV-MD) device that can stably produce clean water (>1.64 kg·m−2·h−1) from seawater while simultaneously having uncompromised electricity generation performance (>11%) under one Sun irradiation. Its high clean water production rate is realized by constructing multi stage membrane distillation (MSMD) device at the backside of the solar cell to recycle the latent heat of water vapor condensation in each distillation stage. This composite device can significantly reduce capital investment costs by sharing the same land and the same mounting system and thus represents a potential possibility to transform an electricity power plant from otherwise a water consumer to a fresh water producer.

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Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation

Abstract

UN SDGs

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