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Nano Research 2023, 16(7): 10530-10536 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5546-9
Research Article | Issue | Published: 02 April 2023

Synergistic realization of high efficiency solar desalination and carbon dioxide reduction

Show Author's Information Xiaoying Song1,  Pei Wang1,  Yi Huang1( ),  Xiaoqiang Zhu2,  U-Fat Chio1,  Fang Wang1,  Guanyu Wang1( ),  Wei Wang1,  Bin Liu3
School of Optoelectronic Engineering, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chongqing 400065, China
Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology, Chinese Academy of Science, Chongqing 400714, China
School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
Keywords:
gold nanoparticles, CO2 reduction, solar desalination, titanium oxide nanowires
Topics:
Semiconducting films
Cite this article:
Song X, Wang P, Huang Y, et al. Synergistic realization of high efficiency solar desalination and carbon dioxide reduction. Nano Research, 2023, 16(7): 10530-10536. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5546-9
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Methods of seawater desalination and carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction using clean and renewable energy have attracted much attention withing the reducing fresh water and growing CO2 concentration. Here, we propose a synergistic method for solar-driven desalination and CO2 reduction at the surface of sea using a three-dimensional titanium oxide-gold semiconductor/metal (TiO2-Au NW/NPs (NW: nanowire, NP: nanoparticle)) photothermal conversion membrane that can efficiently harvest a broad solar spectrum (200 to 2500 nm, 94%) to undertake the conversion of light-to-heat and light-to-electricity. The TiO2-Au NW/NPs membrane demonstrated a high solar vapor conversion efficiency of ~ 90%, CO2 reduction yields of 0.066 μmol·cm−2 CH4 and 0.015 μmol·cm−2 CO within 5 h. In addition, the membrane efficiently evaporated seawater with different salt concentrations to produce drinking water which meet World Health Organization (WHO) and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. This work provides an integrated solution for solar desalination and CO2 reduction at the surface of sea to reduce the harm to marine life caused by ocean acidification while producing pure water.


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About this article

Synergistic realization of high efficiency solar desalination and carbon dioxide reduction

Show Author's information Xiaoying Song1, Pei Wang1, Yi Huang1( ), Xiaoqiang Zhu2, U-Fat Chio1, Fang Wang1, Guanyu Wang1( ), Wei Wang1, Bin Liu3
School of Optoelectronic Engineering, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chongqing 400065, China
Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology, Chinese Academy of Science, Chongqing 400714, China
School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China

Abstract

Methods of seawater desalination and carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction using clean and renewable energy have attracted much attention withing the reducing fresh water and growing CO2 concentration. Here, we propose a synergistic method for solar-driven desalination and CO2 reduction at the surface of sea using a three-dimensional titanium oxide-gold semiconductor/metal (TiO2-Au NW/NPs (NW: nanowire, NP: nanoparticle)) photothermal conversion membrane that can efficiently harvest a broad solar spectrum (200 to 2500 nm, 94%) to undertake the conversion of light-to-heat and light-to-electricity. The TiO2-Au NW/NPs membrane demonstrated a high solar vapor conversion efficiency of ~ 90%, CO2 reduction yields of 0.066 μmol·cm−2 CH4 and 0.015 μmol·cm−2 CO within 5 h. In addition, the membrane efficiently evaporated seawater with different salt concentrations to produce drinking water which meet World Health Organization (WHO) and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. This work provides an integrated solution for solar desalination and CO2 reduction at the surface of sea to reduce the harm to marine life caused by ocean acidification while producing pure water.

Keywords: gold nanoparticles, CO2 reduction, solar desalination, titanium oxide nanowires

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 12 October 2022
Revised: 01 February 2023
Accepted: 05 February 2023
Published: 02 April 2023
Issue date: July 2023

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2023

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This research is partially supported financially by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 62105048), Science and Technology Research Program of Chongqing Education Commission (No. KJQN202100633), the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China (No. 2021M693768), Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing (No. cstc2021jcyj-bshX0239), and Open Project of the National Laboratory of Solid-State Microstructure (No. M34048).

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