A scalable fish-school inspired self-assembled particle system for solar-powered water-solute separation. Issue 10 (21st April 2021) - Xu, Ning
Abstract: Complete separation of water and solute is the ultimate goal of water treatment, for maximized resource recycling. However, commercialized approaches such as evaporative crystallizers consume a large amount of electricity with a significant carbon footprint, leading to calls for alternative energy-efficient and eco-friendly strategies. Here, inspired by schooling fish, we demonstrate a collective system self-assembled by expanded polystyrene (EPS)-core/graphene oxide (GO)-shell particles, which enables autonomous, efficient and complete water-solute separation powered by sunlight. By taking advantage of surface tension, these tailored particles school together naturally and are bonded as a system to function collectively and coordinatively, to nucleate, grow and output salt crystals continuously and automatically out of even saturated brine, to complete water-solute separation. Solar-vapor conversion efficiency over 90% and salt production rate as high as 0.39 kg m –2 h –1 are achieved under 1-sun illumination for this system. It reduces the carbon footprint of ∼50 kg for treating 1-ton saturated brine compared with the commercialized approaches. Abstract : It is important, although very challenging, to realize eco-friendly water-solute separation with minimized carbon footprint. This paper demonstrates a scalable fish-school inspired self-assembled particle system, which enables autonomous, efficient and complete water-solute separation powered by sunlight.