City Research Online

Abstract

Solar powered steam generation is an emerging area in the field of energy harvest and sustainable technologies. The nano-structured photothermal materials are able to harvest energy from the full solar spectrum and convert it to heat with high efficiency. Moreover, the materials and structures for heat management as well as the mass transportation are also brought to the forefront. Several groups have reported their materials and structures as solutions for high performance devices, a few creatively coupled other physical fields with solar energy to achieve even better results. This paper provides a systematic review on the recent developments in photothermal nanomaterial discovery, material selection, structural design and mass/heat management, as well as their applications in seawater desalination and fresh water production from waste water with free solar energy. It also discusses current technical challenges and likely future developments. This article will help to stimulate novel ideas and new designs for the photothermal materials, towards efficient, low cost practical solar-driven clean water production.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2019. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Publisher Keywords:	solar stream generation, plasmonics, porous carbon, photothermal materials, solar energy conversion efficiency, water vapor generation rate
Subjects:	T Technology > TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
Departments:	School of Science & Technology > Engineering
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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