High-yield solar-driven atmospheric water harvesting with ultra-high salt content composites encapsulated in porous membrane

Shan, He (author), Pan, Quanwen (author), Xiang, Chengjie (author), Poredoš, Primož (author), Ma, Qiuming (author), Ye, Zhanyu (author), Hou, Guodong (author), Wang, Ruzhu (author)

Sorption-based atmospheric water harvesting (SAWH) is recognized as a feasible and sustainable approach to address global water scarcity in arid regions. However, easy-to-prepare and inexpensive salt-based sorbents have stringent requirements referring to sorption duration and environmental humidity; otherwise, the leakage of salt solution can occur. Here, we develop a composite sorbent with remarkably high salt content of 80 wt % and without the risk of leakage by introducing a polytetrafluoroethylene membrane encapsulation method. The developed composite HSCC-E10 shows both fast sorption kinetics inherent to the matrix of composites and high absorption capacity of hygroscopic salt solutions, achieving ultra-high sorption capacity of 3.75 g/g, 2.83 g/g, and 1.47 g/g for 90%, 70%, and 30% relative humidity (RH), respectively. A lab-scale device is developed demonstrating 560 mL/m2 water yield under outdoor natural sunlight. The applicability of proposed sorbents could pave the road for future middle- or large-scale applications, such as vehicle-mounted and continuous SAWH.

• Language: English
• Keywords: atmospheric water harvesting, salt content, solution leakage, sorbent, membrane, hygroscopic salt
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FS - Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: 17 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 2, iss. 12, art. 100664
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-134277
• UDC: 628.116:502.3
• ISSN on article: 2666-3864
• DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrp.2021.100664
• COBISS.SI-ID: 91975171
• Publication date in RUL: 04.01.2022

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Cell reports physical science
• Publisher: Cell Press, Elsevier
• ISSN: 2666-3864
• COBISS.SI-ID: 56382467

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: pridobivanje atmosferske vode, vsebnost soli, sorbent, razlitje raztopine, membrana, higroskopska sol

Projects

• Funder: Other - Other funder or multiple funders
• Funding programme: Foundation for Innovative Research Groups ofthe National Natural Science Foundation of China
• Project number: 51521004

• Funder: Other - Other funder or multiple funders
• Funding programme: National Nat-ural Science Foundation of China
• Project number: 52006143