Abstract:

Desalination is greatly important for alleviating the global challenge of fresh water resource shortage. However, most of the traditional desalination technologies face the limitation of excessive energy consumption. The emerging solar-driven interfacial evaporation technology has attracted extensive attention in recent year owing to its low-cost, high-energy efficiency and sustainability. During solar interfacial evaporation process, the sun light can be captured by the photothermal conversion material and converted to thermal energy, which is subsequently transferred to the water molecules at interface, resulting in water evaporation and purification. In this review, we firstly summarize the evolution of solar interfacial evaporation system structure design in the past years. Then the development of emerging photothermal conversion materials including metal-based plasma materials, carbon materials, semiconductor and biomass materials in seawater desalination and waste water treatment is reviewed. Furthermore, the potential of solar interfacial evaporation technology for organic solvent purification is proposed and discussed. Lastly, the prospect and challenge of solar interfacial evaporation technology are summarized, and in particular the coupling of solar interfacial evaporation with steam power generation, photocatalysis and photodecomposition of aquatic hydrogen is pointed out.

Key words: solar-driven interfacial evaporation, desalination, photothermal conversion materials, organic solvent purification

摘要：

海水淡化是缓解全球淡水资源短缺的重要途径，但传统海水淡化技术受限于过大的能源消耗，而太阳能界面蒸发技术因高蒸发效率、可持续性和低成本等优点引起了人们极大的关注。太阳能界面蒸发技术利用光热转换材料将光捕获并高效地转化为热能，随之将热量传递给水分子将其蒸发收集而实现净化。本文综述了近年太阳能界面蒸发系统结构设计的演变，总结了新兴的光热材料如金属基等离子体材料、碳基材料、半导体材料、生物质材料等在海水淡化、污水处理等方面的研究，并基于系统设计理念提出了太阳能蒸发技术应用于有机溶剂纯化领域的可能性。在此基础上，对太阳能界面蒸发技术的前景和面临的挑战进行了总结，提出了太阳能界面蒸发技术与蒸汽发电、光催化、光解水产氢等多种技术的耦合。

关键词: 太阳能界面蒸发, 海水淡化, 光热材料, 有机溶剂纯化