A new concept of a liquid desiccant enhanced evaporative cooling system with the objective of combining the benefits of liquid desiccant and evaporative cooling technologies along with solar thermal utilization was developed in National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of US Department of Energy.
What is the difference between solar evaporation and hydrovoltaic technology?
In this dual-function system, solar evaporation utilizes solar energy to evaporate water, concentrating valuable minerals and salts for easier extraction, while hydrovoltaic technology converts the kinetic energy of water movement into electrical energy.
How can solar evaporation help a low-resource environment?
In the future, solar evaporation technologies could aid in food, energy and water provision in low-resource or rural settings that lack reliable access to these essentials, but the systems must first undergo rigorous, scaled-up field testing to understand their performance, stability and competitiveness.
The concentrating solar power system converts almost 100% of the solar radiation into high-temperature heat, which is used to produce high-pressure steam to drive a membrane desalination process, yielding approximately 80 l m –2 h –1 of fresh water.
How can solar energy be harvested from water evaporation?
Energy can be harvested from water evaporation through thermoelectric, pyroelectric, salinity gradient and hydrovoltaic power generation, producing 1–10 W m –2. Solar photovoltaic–evaporation hybrid systems are better suited to large-scale applications, generating around 100–200 W m –2 of electricity.
Other solar evaporation approaches or combinations of approaches could potentially use the full solar spectrum to generate multiple products (such as water, food, electricity, heating or cooling, and/or fuels).
What are interfacial solar evaporation technologies?
Interfacial solar evaporation technologies use solar energy to drive water evaporation. This Review discusses the use of these technologies to manage wastewater, to recover resources and to produce clean water, food and energy.