Enhanced solar evaporation using a photo-thermal umbrella for wastewater management

Akanksha K. Menon, Iwan Haechler, Sumanjeet Kaur, Sean Lubner and Ravi S. Prasher ()
Additional contact information
Akanksha K. Menon: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Iwan Haechler: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Sumanjeet Kaur: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Sean Lubner: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Ravi S. Prasher: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Nature Sustainability, 2020, vol. 3, issue 2, 144-151

Abstract: Abstract Zero-liquid discharge is an emerging wastewater management strategy that maximizes water recovery for reuse and produces a solid waste, thereby lowering the environmental impact of wastewater disposal. Evaporation ponds harvest solar energy as heat for zero-liquid discharge, but require large land areas due to low evaporation rates. Here, we demonstrate a passive and non-contact approach to enhance evaporation by more than 100% using a photo-thermal device that converts sunlight into mid-infrared radiation where water is strongly absorbing. As a result, heat is localized at the water’s surface through radiative coupling, resulting in better utilization of solar energy with a conversion efficiency of 43%. The non-contact nature of the device makes it uniquely suited to treat a wide range of wastewater without contamination, and the use of commercial materials enables a potentially low-cost and highly scalable technology for sustainable wastewater management, with the added benefit of salt recovery.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0445-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natsus:v:3:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1038_s41893-019-0445-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/natsustain/

DOI: 10.1038/s41893-019-0445-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Sustainability is currently edited by Monica Contestabile

More articles in Nature Sustainability from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().