• 文献标题:   Dimensionally controlled graphene-based surfaces for photothermal membrane crystallization
  • 文献类型:   Article
  • 作  者:   SANTORO S, AQUINO M, SEO DH, VAN DER LAAN T, LEE MW, YUN JS, PARK MJ, BENDAVID A, SHON HK, AVCI AH, CURCIO E
  • 作者关键词:   photothermal membrane crystallization, graphenebased photothermal membrane, heterogeneous nucleation, resources recovery, waterenergyraw materials nexu, circular economy
  • 出版物名称:   JOURNAL OF COLLOID INTERFACE SCIENCE
  • ISSN:   0021-9797 EI 1095-7103
  • 通讯作者地址:  
  • 被引频次:   7
  • DOI:   10.1016/j.jcis.2022.05.062 EA MAY 2022
  • 出版年:   2022

▎ 摘  要

Membrane-based photothermal crystallization -a pioneering technology for mining valuable minerals from seawater and brines -exploits self-heating nanostructured interfaces to boost water evaporation, so achieving a controlled supersaturation environment that promotes the nucleation and growth of salts. This work explores, for the first time, the use of two-dimensional graphene thin films (2D-G) and three dimensional vertically orientated graphene sheet arrays (3D-G) as potential photothermal membranes applied to the dehydration of sodium chloride, potassium chloride and magnesium sulfate hypersaline solutions, followed by salt crystallization. A systematic study sheds light on the role of vertical alignment of graphene sheets on the interfacial, light absorption and photothermal characteristics of the membrane, impacting on the water evaporation rate and on the crystal size distribution of the investigated salts. Overall, 3D-G facilitates the crystallization of the salts because of superior light-to-heat conversion leading to a 3-fold improvement of the evaporation rate with respect to 2D-G. The exploitation of sunlight graphene-based interfaces is demonstrated as a potential sustainable solution to aqueous wastes valorization via recovery in solid phase of dissolved salts using renewable solar energy.