A scalable fish-school inspired self-assembled particle system for solar-powered water-solute separation
Ning Xu, Haoran Zhang, Zhenhui Lin, Jinlei Li, Guoliang Liu, Xiuqiang Li, Wei Zhao, Xinzhe Min, Pengcheng Yao, Lin Zhou, Yan Song, Bin Zhu, Shining Zhu, Jia Zhu
Abstract
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.