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Revolutionizing Conventional Solar Water

Evaporation With Hydrogels
By Karla Lant on May 22, 2018

Saline water—classified as having more than

1,000 ppm of dissolved salts—can be made into
freshwater through desalination. The process is
typically fueled by the sun, or by some other
power source heating the water; after the heat
energy turns the saline water into steam, one
captures the steam, and then distills it back into
water as it cools and condenses. On a small
scale, such as that of an individual-sized still, it’s
a simple, rain-inspired process, albeit a slow
one.

Large-scale methods are available, but to be

practical, these technological processes have to
remain on a massive scale, and any way you
slice it, they are energy-intensive, costly, and LATEST
require large-scale facilities. The challenge,
then, is to come up with new technologies that Outdoor solar water purification using HNGs in From Butter ies To Birds:
are less expensive and less energy-intensive. natural sunlight. (Credit: Zhao, et al.) Five Rivers MetroParks
Distillation not only removes salt, but also other Fauna Get Thorough
contaminants, so it’s been a traditional standby treatment process. The challenge to improve upon it Environmental
is growing more urgent as the Earth’s population booms and freshwater resources dwindle thanks to Monitoring
pollution and drought. Salinity is a problem in at least 30 percent of the world’s irrigated regions, and Butter ies, deer, turtles,
remediation is very expensive, creating additional need for low-cost desalination. salamanders, frogs, sh and
birds are...
A research team from the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin has
been working on this issue. Led by associate professor of materials science and mechanical Seeing The Forest And
engineering Guihua Yu, the team has come up with a breakthrough in desalination technology, The Trees: Five Rivers
thanks to combined gel-polymer hybrid materials—hydrogels. Dr. Yu corresponded with EM about MetroParks Areas Are
the research. Rich With Environmental
Monitoring Opportunities
Framing the problem Five Rivers MetroParks boast a
variety of habitats for...
Obviously, there are a number of weaknesses in the existing “state of the art” for desalination. The
team took a systematic approach to dealing with each weakness in turn.
Deep-Sea Hydrothermal
“Thermal-based water purification is the mainstream industrial tech, such as multi-effect distillation Vent Microbial
(MED), multi-stage flash distillation (MSF) and mechanical vapor compression (MVC), which Communities Surprisingly
separates water and impurities through water vaporization to produce high purity output water,” Productive
explains Yu. “Solar water purification is an emerging promising alternative, using solar energy to New research indicates that
heat water for evaporation. However, due to the large phase change enthalpy (i.e. energy required deep-sea hydrothermal vent
for water vaporization), thermal water purification is typically an energy-intensive process.” microbial communities...

Therefore, to provide enough energy for the water evaporation step of the process, most industrial
solar water purification systems utilize costly and complex optical concentrators (OCs). These focus
sunlight to heat the water. However, such optical concentration leads to higher construction and
maintenance costs.

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9/16/2018 Revolutionizing Conventional Solar Water Evaporation With Hydrogels - Environmental Monitor
“Our innovation provides the possibility of ending the dependence on these costly OCs and
HOME EARTH WETLANDS LAKES OCEANS RIVERS TECHNOLOGY
installations,” details Yu. “More importantly, in terms of a more fundamental understanding of solar
FISH SCIENCE
water evaporation, our research offers a new perspective: that the interaction between functional
material and water plays a significant role, whereupon material science and engineering could be
helpful to improve the performance of solar desalination.”

Schematic of highly efficient solar vapour generation based on tailored water transport in HNGs.
(Credit: Zhao, et al.)

Hydrogels are known for their high water absorbency, because they both attract water and then trap
it. This is an important part of the team’s new technology.

“Hydrogels have two parts: ‘hydro’ and ‘gel,’ where ‘hydro’ refers to contained water and ‘gel’
represents its skeleton,” Yu describes. “These polymers are fibers, polymer chains, at the molecular
scale. When they react with crosslinkers, fibers are interconnected with each other to form a three-
dimensional polymer network. The hydrophilic functional groups on the polymers are able to act as
traps to hold water molecules, and many of these together form molecular meshes that play the role
of chambers to store water molecules.”

What sets this particular hydrogel apart, however, is its solar abilities.

“Regarding this specific gel in this technology, we integrated a light absorbing polymer (polypyrrole,
PPy) with a conventional water absorbing gel (polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)), so that the newly-obtained
gel can be efficiently heated by sunlight, evaporating the absorbed water,” adds Yu.

This overall design and set of qualities means more evaporation with a much lower energy price
tag.

“In solar water purification, the separation of contaminates and water relies on the evaporation
process,” remarks Yu. “When the water in the hydrogel vaporizes, the impurities such as salt will be
left in the hydrogel. The vapor can be condensed elsewhere to obtain the purified water. The most
significant point of our research is that our gel can facilitate this evaporation process, and work
effectively and robustly for a long time.”

In fact, according to Yu, the solar desalination process achieved in tests significantly reduced the
salinity of seawater—by about 3 to 4 orders of magnitude.

Rewriting the desalination playbook

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9/16/2018 Revolutionizing Conventional Solar Water Evaporation With Hydrogels - Environmental Monitor
In a press release, Yu indicated that the team has “essentially rewritten the entire approach to
HOME EARTH WETLANDS LAKES OCEANS RIVERS
conventional solar water evaporation.” Given that the team’s hydrogel-based solar vapor generator
TECHNOLOGY FISH SCIENCE
was able to achieve drinking water standards with samples from the Dead Sea using ambient solar
energy for power, this seems accurate. Outdoor testing produced as much as 25 liters of drinking
water for every square meter—and it can remove more than just salt.

“The basic needs [for disaster areas and home use] are similar: purify water using solar energy
without an external power supply,” clarifies Yu. “The difference is the possible impurities. For
household use, the impurities might be organics such as detergent or oil contamination. For
emergency use during a disaster, the major impurities could be mud, microorganisms, and other
insoluble pollutants.”

Characterization of the HNGs. (Credit: Zhao, et al.)

This unique hydrogel is able to vaporize more water using less energy because its polymer network
can break even the strong interactions among water molecules in liquid water. Another important
innovation in this work is the ability to avoid reinventing the wheel despite this technological
advance.

“While our material enables solar desalination without a distillation system, it is potentially
compatible with current industrial distillation systems, which can significantly enhance energy
utilization efficiency through optimized chemical engineering design,” states Yu. “In other words, our
hydrogel can be used not only to fabricate ‘portable purifiers’ for domestic or emergency uses, but
also to replace the solar evaporator materials in conventional industrial distillation systems in the
near future.”

In terms of what’s coming next for the team, scalability tests are in the near future.

“Regarding scalability, we are working in two parallel directions,” remarks Yu. “One is the scaling of
materials fabrication; we already made samples of about 10 inches in area, and now we’re working
on even larger sizes. The other is to fabricate practical, portable solar water purification devices
based on our gel to move the laboratory achievement to commercialization stage. Moreover, we will
collaborate with other experts to evaluate our gel in industrial solar desalination systems.”

Yu believes that ultimately these materials and the technology may be in use at an industrial scale,
deployed by municipalities, after they’re first put to work in smaller devices used by individual
households.

“The design of materials, especially materials for solar evaporators, benefits the further
development of solar-powered water purification,” adds Yu. “Low-cost, scalable, hydrogel-based
materials hold promise for system-level applications in industrial water treatment.”

desalination featured news ticker puri cation salinity Technology

University of Texas

About Karla Lant

Karla Lant is a professional freelance science writer and a member of the Society of
Environmental Journalists. She also covers other scienti c and medical stories as well as
technology.

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