Functionalized Graphene Enables Highly Efficient Solar Thermal Steam Generation

Junlong Yang; Yunsong Pang; Weixin Huang; Scott K Shaw; Jarrod Schiffbauer; Michelle Anne Pillers; Xin Mu; Shirui Luo; Teng Zhang; Yajiang Huang; Guangxian Li; Sylwia Ptasinska; Marya Lieberman; Tengfei Luo

doi:10.1021/acsnano.7b00367

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Functionalized Graphene Enables Highly Efficient Solar Thermal Steam Generation

Journal article

Peer reviewed

Functionalized Graphene Enables Highly Efficient Solar Thermal Steam Generation

Junlong Yang, Yunsong Pang, Weixin Huang, Scott K Shaw, Jarrod Schiffbauer, Michelle Anne Pillers, Xin Mu, Shirui Luo, Teng Zhang, Yajiang Huang, …

ACS nano, Vol.11(6), pp.5510-5518

06/27/2017

DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.7b00367

PMID: 28511003

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https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Functionalized_graphene_enables_highly_efficient_solar_thermal_steam_generation/27621411View

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Abstract

The ability to efficiently utilize solar thermal energy to enable liquid-to-vapor phase transition has great technological implications for a wide variety of applications, such as water treatment and chemical fractionation. Here, we demonstrate that functionalizing graphene using hydrophilic groups can greatly enhance the solar thermal steam generation efficiency. Our results show that specially functionalized graphene can improve the overall solar-to-vapor efficiency from 38% to 48% at one sun conditions compared to chemically reduced graphene oxide. Our experiments show that such an improvement is a surface effect mainly attributed to the more hydrophilic feature of functionalized graphene, which influences the water meniscus profile at the vapor–liquid interface due to capillary effect. This will lead to thinner water films close to the three-phase contact line, where the water surface temperature is higher since the resistance of thinner water film is smaller, leading to more efficient evaporation. This strategy of functionalizing graphene to make it more hydrophilic can be potentially integrated with the existing macroscopic heat isolation strategies to further improve the overall solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency.

functionalized graphene

high efficiency evaporation

hydrophilic groups

vapor−liquid interface

solar steam generation

Details

Title: Subtitle: Functionalized Graphene Enables Highly Efficient Solar Thermal Steam Generation
Creators: Junlong Yang - Sichuan University
Yunsong Pang - Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Weixin Huang - Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Scott K Shaw - Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Jarrod Schiffbauer - Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Michelle Anne Pillers - Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Xin Mu - Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Shirui Luo - Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Teng Zhang - Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Yajiang Huang - Sichuan University
Guangxian Li - Sichuan University
Sylwia Ptasinska - Radiation Laboratory
Marya Lieberman - Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Tengfei Luo - Center for Sustainable Energy at Notre Dame
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: ACS nano, Vol.11(6), pp.5510-5518
DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.7b00367
PMID: 28511003
NLM abbreviation: ACS Nano
ISSN: 1936-0851
eISSN: 1936-086X
Publisher: American Chemical Society
Grant note: DOI: 10.13039/100000183, name: Army Research Office, award: W911NF-16-1-0267; DOI: 10.13039/501100004543, name: China Scholarship Council; DOI: 10.13039/501100001809, name: National Natural Science Foundation of China, award: 51421061
Language: English
Date published: 06/27/2017
Academic Unit: Chemistry
Record Identifier: 9984217453402771

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