A novel high-efficiency multi-layer carbon/polyester cotton fabric
vaporizer and its application in seawater desalination
Abstract
Solar-driven evaporation of seawater by the photothermal materials (PM)
is considered to be a promising strategy to solve the global water
shortage. Fiber-based photothermal material is one of the most important
PM materials. However, traditional single-layer fabrics have the
demerits of heat-losses and salt-crystallize on the evaporation zone
during the long-term seawater desalination, which significantly reduces
the evaporation rate of the products. Herein, a novel three-layered 3D
spacer carbon/polyester cotton spacer woven fabric (SWF) evaporator is
designed. This novel SWF consist of a top water evaporate layer, a
middle water transfer/thermal insulation/salt crystal layer and a bottom
water absorption layer. The above rational three-layered 3D structure
guarantees the fast water-transformation of SWF evaporator while avoid
the heat loss from the top layer. The evaporation rate of 3D SWF with 6
mm interval space reaches 2.1 kg·h-1·m-2 in a solar-wind (1 kW·m−2, 2
m·s-1) coupled field, which is proved to be competent for the actual
seawater desalinate application.