基于气凝胶的界面太阳能光蒸汽转化技术的研究进展

Research Progress of Aerogels for Interfacial Solar-Vapor Conversion Technology

淡水,乃是具有战略意义的全球性问题,对人类生存、经济发展和社会进步至关重要。面向碳中和、碳达峰目标探寻绿色环保的水淡技术,研究者将目光投向了新兴的太阳能海水淡化技术。近年来,新型界面太阳能光蒸汽转化系统因其高效的产水效率、可编程的蒸发装置和丰富的材料选择而迅速成为海淡技术的典型代表,界面系统的构筑主要包括光吸收器材料设计制备和蒸发装置的构建。在众多光热材料候选者中,气凝胶因其轻质、多孔以及低热导率而脱颖而出,表现出了优异的光吸收、热管理和水输运能力,并为光吸收器和蒸发器一体化提供了极佳的实现途径。如何通过调控气凝胶的组成与结构以及蒸发器的构建,减少其在光蒸汽转化过程中的能量损失,并将其投入实际运用正逐渐成为该领域的研究重点。本文系统地梳理并阐述了近年来气凝胶用于界面太阳能光蒸汽转化技术的研究进展,详细分类讨论了不同材料的光热转化机制以及不同种类气凝胶的性能特点,探讨了气凝胶在海水淡化方面的最新应用,同时分析了其优缺点及所面临的挑战,并简单总结了气凝胶的结构设计与亲疏水改性方法,最后对应用于界面太阳能光蒸汽转化的气凝胶材料进行了总结与展望。

Freshwater is a global problem of great strategic significance,which is paramount to human survival,economic development and social progress.Facing the goal of carbon neutrality and carbon peak,aiming at exploring green and eco-friendly seawater desalination technology,researchers have focused on the emerging solar driven seawater desalination technology.In recent years,the new interfacial solar-vapor conversion(ISVC)technology has rapidly become one of the prior strategies for seawater desalination due to its high water production rate,programmable evaporator device and abundant material precursors.At the same time,among many candidates for photothermal materials,aerogels show the excellent properties involving light absorption,thermal management and water transportation benefitting from their lightweight,porous microstructure and low thermal conductivity,and provide the possibility to integrate light-absorbers and evaporators into one body.How to adjust the composition and structure of aerogels becomes the focus towards reducing the energy loss and practical application.In this paper,we systematically illustrated the research progress of ISVC system based on aerogels,and discussed mechanism of photothermal conversion and the performance characteristics of different types of aerogels in detail and the latest applications,simultaneously analyzed their merits and facing challenges in actual seawater desalination,summarized the hydrophilic or hydrophobic modification methods and structural design of materials briefly.Finally,we predict the prospect of the ISVC aerogels.