Dyson sphere-like evaporators enhanced interfacial solar evaporation via self-generated internal convection

Deyu Wang, Xuan Wu, Huimin Yu, Yiming Bu, Yi Lu, Dewei Chu, Gary Owens, Xiaofei Yang () and Haolan Xu ()
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Deyu Wang: Mawson Lakes Campus
Xuan Wu: Mawson Lakes Campus
Huimin Yu: Mawson Lakes Campus
Yiming Bu: Mawson Lakes Campus
Yi Lu: Nanjing Forestry University
Dewei Chu: University of New South Wales
Gary Owens: Mawson Lakes Campus
Xiaofei Yang: Nanjing Forestry University
Haolan Xu: Mawson Lakes Campus

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Enhancing solar evaporation performance while minimizing material consumption is essential for advancing the practical application of interfacial solar evaporation technologies. Although introducing external airflow can significantly boost evaporation rates, it requires additional components and electricity input, compromising the simplicity, passivity and sustainability of interfacial solar evaporation. To address this challenge, Dyson sphere-like evaporators (DSEs) capable of self-generating convective flow inside the evaporator are designed. This self-generated internal airflow facilitates the removal of generated vapor from both inner and outer evaporation surfaces, thus significantly improving the evaporation rate. Notably, despite sacrificing 36% of solar light energy to generate internal convection, the DSE still achieves a much higher evaporation rate (4.08 kg m−2 h−1) compared to a typical spherical evaporator (2.04 kg m−2 h−1) which utilizes all the solar light energy directly for water evaporation. This finding suggests that future evaporator design should consider the balance between the energy used for water evaporation and convection generation for vapor removal.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-63268-7

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