Solar Evaporator with Controlled Salt Precipitation for Zero Liquid Discharge Desalination

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

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

280 Scopus citations

Abstract

A sustainable supply of clean water is essential for the development of modern society, which has become increasingly dependent on desalination technology since 96.5% of the water on Earth is salt water. Thousands of desalination plants are producing massive waste brine as byproduct, and the direct discharge of brine raises serious concerns about its ecological impact. The concept of zero liquid discharge (ZLD) desalination is regarded as the solution, but the current ZLD technologies are hampered by their intensive use of energy and high cost. In this work, a 3D cup shaped solar evaporator was fabricated to achieve ZLD desalination with high energy efficiency via solar distillation. It produces solid salt as the only byproduct and uses sunlight as the only energy source. By rationally separating the light absorbing surface from the salt precipitation surface, the light absorption of the 3D solar evaporator is no longer affected by the salt crust layer as in conventional 2D solar evaporators. Therefore, it can be operated at an extremely high salt concentration of 25 wt % without noticeable water evaporation rate decay in at least 120 h. This new solar evaporator design concept offers a promising technology especially for high salinity brine treatment in desalination plants to achieve greener ZLD desalination as well as for hypersaline industrial wastewater treatment.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)11822-11830
Number of pages9
JournalEnvironmental Science & Technology
Volume52
Issue number20
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 17 2018

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