posted on 2023-03-23, 05:07authored byMuhammad
Sultan Irshad, Naila Arshad, Gang Liu, Naveed Mushtaq, Arshad Ali Lashari, Wancheng Qin, Muhammad Sohail Asghar, Hongrong Li, Xianbao Wang
Biomass-based
photothermal conversion is of great importance for
solar energy utilization toward carbon neutrality. Herein, a hybrid
solar evaporator is innovatively designed via UV-induced printing
of pyrolyzed Kudzu biochar on hydrophilic cotton fabric (KB@CF) to
integrate all parameters in a single evaporator, such as solar evaporation,
salt collection, waste heat recovery for thermoelectricity, sieving
oil emulsions, and water disinfection from microorganisms. The UV-induced
printed fabric demonstrates stronger material adhesion as compared
to the conventional dip-dry technique. The hybrid solar evaporator
gives an enhanced evaporation rate (2.32 kg/m2 h), and
the complementary waste heat recovery system generates maximum open-circuit
voltage (Vout ∼ 143.9 mV) and solar
to vapor conversion efficiency (92%), excluding heat losses under
one sun illumination. More importantly, 99.98% of photothermal-induced
bacterial killing efficiency was achieved within 20 min under 1 kW
m–2 using the hyperthermia effect of Kudzu biochar.
Furthermore, numerical heat-transfer simulations were performed successfully
to analyze the enhanced interfacial heat accumulation (75.3 °C)
and heat flux distribution of the thermoelectric generators under
one sun. We firmly believe that the safe use of bio-polluted invasive
species in hybrid solar-driven evaporation systems eases the environmental
pressure toward carbon neutrality.