Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation

Wenbin Wang; Yusuf Shi; Chenlin Zhang; Seunghyun Hong; Le Shi; Jian Chang; Renyuan Li; Yong Jin; Chi Siang Ong; Sifei Zhuo; Peng Wang

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-10817-6

Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation

Wenbin Wang, Yusuf Shi, Chenlin Zhang, Seunghyun Hong, Le Shi, Jian Chang, Renyuan Li, Yong Jin, Chi Siang Ong, Sifei Zhuo, Peng Wang

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

313 Scopus citations

Abstract

The energy shortage and clean water scarcity are two key challenges for global sustainable development. Near half of the total global water withdrawals is consumed by power generation plants while water desalination consumes lots of electricity. Here, we demonstrate a photovoltaics-membrane distillation (PV-MD) device that can stably produce clean water (>1.64 kg·m−2·h−1) from seawater while simultaneously having uncompromised electricity generation performance (>11%) under one Sun irradiation. Its high clean water production rate is realized by constructing multi stage membrane distillation (MSMD) device at the backside of the solar cell to recycle the latent heat of water vapor condensation in each distillation stage. This composite device can significantly reduce capital investment costs by sharing the same land and the same mounting system and thus represents a potential possibility to transform an electricity power plant from otherwise a water consumer to a fresh water producer.

Original language	English (US)
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	10
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10817-6
State	Published - Jul 9 2019

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10.1038/s41467-019-10817-6

https://repository.kaust.edu.sa/bitstream/10754/656422/1/s41467-019-10817-6.pdf

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title = "Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation",

abstract = "The energy shortage and clean water scarcity are two key challenges for global sustainable development. Near half of the total global water withdrawals is consumed by power generation plants while water desalination consumes lots of electricity. Here, we demonstrate a photovoltaics-membrane distillation (PV-MD) device that can stably produce clean water (>1.64 kg·m−2·h−1) from seawater while simultaneously having uncompromised electricity generation performance (>11%) under one Sun irradiation. Its high clean water production rate is realized by constructing multi stage membrane distillation (MSMD) device at the backside of the solar cell to recycle the latent heat of water vapor condensation in each distillation stage. This composite device can significantly reduce capital investment costs by sharing the same land and the same mounting system and thus represents a potential possibility to transform an electricity power plant from otherwise a water consumer to a fresh water producer.",

author = "Wenbin Wang and Yusuf Shi and Chenlin Zhang and Seunghyun Hong and Le Shi and Jian Chang and Renyuan Li and Yong Jin and Ong, {Chi Siang} and Sifei Zhuo and Peng Wang",

note = "KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01 Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful to the KAUST for very generous financial support.",

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doi = "10.1038/s41467-019-10817-6",

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T1 - Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation

AU - Wang, Wenbin

AU - Shi, Yusuf

AU - Zhang, Chenlin

AU - Hong, Seunghyun

AU - Shi, Le

AU - Chang, Jian

AU - Li, Renyuan

AU - Jin, Yong

AU - Ong, Chi Siang

AU - Zhuo, Sifei

AU - Wang, Peng

N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01 Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful to the KAUST for very generous financial support.

PY - 2019/7/9

Y1 - 2019/7/9

N2 - The energy shortage and clean water scarcity are two key challenges for global sustainable development. Near half of the total global water withdrawals is consumed by power generation plants while water desalination consumes lots of electricity. Here, we demonstrate a photovoltaics-membrane distillation (PV-MD) device that can stably produce clean water (>1.64 kg·m−2·h−1) from seawater while simultaneously having uncompromised electricity generation performance (>11%) under one Sun irradiation. Its high clean water production rate is realized by constructing multi stage membrane distillation (MSMD) device at the backside of the solar cell to recycle the latent heat of water vapor condensation in each distillation stage. This composite device can significantly reduce capital investment costs by sharing the same land and the same mounting system and thus represents a potential possibility to transform an electricity power plant from otherwise a water consumer to a fresh water producer.

AB - The energy shortage and clean water scarcity are two key challenges for global sustainable development. Near half of the total global water withdrawals is consumed by power generation plants while water desalination consumes lots of electricity. Here, we demonstrate a photovoltaics-membrane distillation (PV-MD) device that can stably produce clean water (>1.64 kg·m−2·h−1) from seawater while simultaneously having uncompromised electricity generation performance (>11%) under one Sun irradiation. Its high clean water production rate is realized by constructing multi stage membrane distillation (MSMD) device at the backside of the solar cell to recycle the latent heat of water vapor condensation in each distillation stage. This composite device can significantly reduce capital investment costs by sharing the same land and the same mounting system and thus represents a potential possibility to transform an electricity power plant from otherwise a water consumer to a fresh water producer.

UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/656422

UR - http://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10817-6

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068773419&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s41467-019-10817-6

DO - 10.1038/s41467-019-10817-6

M3 - Article

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SN - 2041-1723

VL - 10

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

IS - 1

ER -

Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation

Abstract

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