Carbon black and polydopamine modified non-woven fabric enabling efficient solar steam generation towards seawater desalination and wastewater purification

Shuangjie Sun, Binbin Sun, Yameng Wang, Maxwell Fordjour Antwi-Afari, Hao-yang Mi*, Zhanhu Guo*, Chuntai Liu, Changyu Shen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The utilization of solar energy for steam generation is a highly efficient and sustainable technology for seawater desalination to solve the long-standing water crisis. Carbon-based materials have shown promising thermal-heat conversion efficiency due to their broadband solar absorption. Herein, carbon black (CB) was combined with polydopamine (PDA) to develop a high-performance, low-cost, and scalable PDA/CB@PP composite non-woven fabric was fabricated by dip-coating of CB and in situ polymerization of PDA. The hierarchical structure constructed on the fiber surface and the synergetic effects of CB and PDA contributed to the high light absorbance (>95%), superhydrophilicity, and high energy conversion efficiency. The one-way fluidic PDA/CB@PP photothermal based solar steam evaporator demonstrated a high evaporation rate of 1.68 kg m-2 h-1 with a solar steam efficiency of 91.5%. Moreover, the PDA/CB@PP fabric shows remarkable salt resistance when purifying seawater because of the water channel preserved by the hydrophilic porous structure of the fabric which could provide sustained water supply. Besides, the PDA/CB@PP fabric possesses excellent purification capability to wastewaters contaminated by heavy-metal and chemical dyes. This study provides insights into the design and development of low-cost, scalable, highly stable, and efficient solar steam generators for seawater desalination and wastewater purification.
Original languageEnglish
Article number119621
JournalSeparation and Purification Technology
Volume278
Early online date1 Sept 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2022

Bibliographical note

© 2021, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Funding: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51603075, 12072325), National Key R&D Program of China (2019YFA0706802).

Keywords

  • Carbon black
  • Desalination
  • Polydopamine
  • Salt resistance
  • Solar steam generation

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