nature water

Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00059-8

Solar steam-driven membrane filtration for

high flux water purification

Received: 29 April 2022 Xueyang Wang 1,4, Zhenhui Lin1,4, Jintong Gao2, Zhenyuan Xu 2,
Xiuqiang Li 3 , Ning Xu1, Jinlei Li1, Yan Song1, Hanyu Fu1, Wei Zhao1,
Accepted: 1 March 2023
Shuaihao Wang 1, Bin Zhu1, Ruzhu Wang 2 & Jia Zhu 1
Published online: 3 April 2023

Check for updates In recent years, interfacial solar steam generation has shown great potential
for desalination with high solar-to-steam conversion efficiency. However,
the freshwater production rate is still limited by the substantial latent heat
of water evaporation and condensation efficiency. Here we designed an
interfacial solar steam-driven reverse osmosis/nanofiltration device that
generates high pressure that pushes water molecules through a filtration
membrane to achieve separation from ions. The solar steam-driven reverse
osmosis device reaches a water production rate as high as 81 kg m−2 h−1
under 12 sun illumination. Moreover, a theoretical model indicates that
there still exists attractive room to further improve the freshwater output
by optimizing the thermal insulation and expansion ratio of the device.
This work paves a new way to design highly efficient miniaturized or
decentralized drinking water devices.

In recent years, with the growth of the population and the rise of indus-
trialization, freshwater resources have become very scarce1–3. Solar
thermal desalination, especially interfacial solar steam generation with
dramatically improved evaporation efficiency4–18, offers a promising
pathway to alleviate the water crisis with minimum environmental
impact. Advanced interfacial solar heating techniques show more than
90% energy efficiency and flourishing application prospects19–35. How-
ever, evaporation needs to overcome the vaporization enthalpy of
water (which varies slightly around 2,455.6 kJ kg−1), which significantly
limits the solar to freshwater output. Typically, the theoretical water
evaporation rate of the single-stage solar still is about 1.47 kg m−2 h−1
under 1 sun illumination32,36. Although some technologies, such as
multi-stage evaporation and low-pressure evaporation, have been
developed to increase the water production rate further, the vapori-
zation enthalpy of water is still considerable (achieving, for example,
a water production rate of 2.94 kg m−2 h−1 under 1 sun illumination for
ten-stage evaporation)37–46.
On the other hand, reverse osmosis (RO)/nanofiltration (NF),
which realizes the separation of ions and water molecules through a
separation membrane, has a low theoretical thermodynamic energy.
The ideal energy consumption of the thermodynamically constant-
pressure RO filtration process for seawater at 35,000 ppm salt is
1.6 kWh m−3 (refs. 47–49). The actual energy spent in the RO stage with a
typical water recovery of 50% is ~1.8 kWh m−3 (6.48 kJ kg−1), approaching
the thermodynamic limit49,50.
Here, we first combine interfacial solar steam generation technol-
ogy with membrane filtration-based water purification technology
to improve the water production rate of solar thermal desalination.
Specifically, the high-temperature high-pressure steam generated by
interfacial solar heating pushes water molecules through the RO/NF
membrane to achieve separation from ions. Compared with the conven-
tional solar-steam condensation method, the solar steam-driven (SSD)-
RO/NF method dramatically reduces the energy required for separation
since it avoids the direct evaporation of water molecules (Fig. 1a).
According to the developed theoretical model, the theoretical water
production rate of the SSD-RO method is two orders of magnitude
higher than that of the single-stage solar-steam condensation method,
and is comparable to and even greater than that of photovoltaic-driven

1
National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional
Materials, Nanjing University, Nanjing, P. R. China. 2Engineering Research Center of Solar Power and Refrigeration (MOE), Institute of Refrigeration and
Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, P. R. China. 3Key Laboratory for Intelligent Nano Materials and Devices of Ministry of Education, and
Institute for Frontier Science, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, P. R. China. 4These authors contributed equally: Xueyang Wang
and Zhenhui Lin. e-mail: xiuqiang.li@nuaa.edu.cn; jiazhu@nju.edu.cn

Nature Water | Volume 1 | April 2023 | 391–398 391

Article
Steam
Solar evaporator
Interfacial solar heating
b c
1,200
Theoretical steam
temperature (K)
1,000
800
600
400
0 10
Solar power density (kW m–2)
Fig. 1 | A schematic and the theoretical water production rate of the
SSD-RO/NF system. a, A schematic of the SSD-RO/NF system. High-temperature
high-pressure steam generated by interfacial solar heating pushes water
molecules through the RO/NF membrane to achieve separation from ions.
RO (PV-RO) (Fig. 1b,c; more details about the model can be found in
Supplementary Figs. 1–6 and Supplementary Note 1). Experimentally
we achieved up to 81 kg m−2 h−1 under 12 sun illumination by designing
and optimizing the materials, optics, thermals and structures of the
SSD-RO device. This work is expected to provide a new strategy toward
high throughput solar thermal desalination.
Design and setup of the SSD-RO/NF device
The design and construction of the SSD-RO/NF device are shown in
Fig. 2. This SSD-RO/NF device mainly consists of a booster cavity, pres-
sure-sensing piston, seawater cavity, freshwater cavity and cylinder
(Supplementary Figs. 7 and 8 and Supplementary Tables 1 and 2 for
the SSD-RO/NF device construction details). The high-temperature
high-pressure steam is generated by interfacial solar heating in the
booster cavity. Then, the steam pushes the piston below and seawater
through the RO/NF membrane to complete water filtration. According
to our theoretical calculations, the thermal insulation performance of
the device determines the temperature and pressure of steam, which
further determine the water production rate of the SSD-RO/NF device
(Supplementary Fig. 2). Thus, the thermal insulation of the SSD-RO/
NF device has been carefully designed and optimized. Specifically, the
vacuum between the sidewall interlayers of the booster cavity and sea-
water cavity prominently suppresses heat conduction and convection.
The vacuum between interlayers was pumped to less than 5 Pa to make
Nature Water | Volume 1 | April 2023 | 391–398
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00059-8
Solar steam-driven filtration system
RO/NF
Piston Brine membrane
Pressure
Freshwater
300
production rate (kg kWh–1)
Theoretical water
200
100
0
20 30 0 10 20 30
Solar power density (kW m–2)
b, The theoretical steady-state temperature of steam achieved by interfacial
solar heating with ideal thermal insulation. Water was the medium of interfacial
solar heating to generate steam in the calculation. c, The theoretical water
production rate of the SSD-RO method.
the thermal conductivity51,52 less than 0.003 W m−1 K−1. The inner wall
of the booster cavity was attached to a waterproof SiO2 nano-aerogel
felt with thermal conductivity of 0.012 W m−1 K−1 to further suppress
heat loss. The transparent glass at the top was made into a double-layer
structure, with a vacuum (<5 Pa) between the two glass layers to inhibit
heat transfer. Also, nylon with low thermal conductivity was selected as
the pressure-sensing piston under the premise of mechanical support.
Numerical calculations also show that the expansion ratio of steam in
the booster cavity is an important factor for the water production rate
of the SSD-RO/NF device. The expansion ratio relates to the amount
of internal energy of steam converted to mechanical energy for water
filtration53–55 (Supplementary Fig. 9 and Supplementary Note 2). Con-
sidering the volume of the device and the minimum starting pressure
of the RO/NF membrane, we achieved a maximum steam expansion
ratio of 8. Finally, to prevent the condensation of small droplets dur-
ing evaporation from affecting the transmittance, the inner wall of the
transparent glass was treated with O2 plasma and its surface was made
super-hydrophilic56 (Supplementary Fig. 10).
Design of the solar evaporator
To ensure that interfacial solar heating generates high-temperature
high-pressure steam in the closed booster cavity, in addition to the
excellent thermal insulation SSD-RO/NF of the device, the solar evapo-
rator should provide stable and efficient steam at high temperature and
392
Article
Pressure
sensor
High pressure steam
Temperature
sensor
Booster cavity
Vacuum insulation
Seawater
Sink cavity
Pressure-
sensing piston
Freshwater
RO/NF
cavity/outlet
membrane
Cylinder
Fig. 2 | The design and setup of the SSD-RO/NF device. A schematic (left) and
photograph (right) of the SSD-RO/NF device. The SSD-RO/NF device is composed
of a booster cavity, pressure-sensing piston, seawater cavity, freshwater cavity,
RO/NF membrane and cylinder. The vacuum in the sidewall interlayers was used
high pressure. To obtain this unique evaporator, it is essential to care-
fully tailor structures for both high temperature/pressure resistance
and heat localization, in addition to general considerations of optical
design and water supply. We developed an evaporator consisting of a
top solar absorber and bottom thermal insulator (Fig. 3a). As the pivotal
part of the evaporator, the top solar absorber needs to have microme-
tre-sized pores for vapour escape, efficient solar absorption, water
supply and high temperature/pressure resistance. Therefore, carbon
foam was chosen as the initial substrate for solar absorber fabrication
because of its porous structure and high temperature/pressure resist-
ance. To enhance hydrophilicity and solar absorption57,58, the original
surface of carbon foam was coated with multi-walled carbon nano-
tubes (CNTs). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images are shown in
Fig. 3b,c. Water contact angle measurement shows that the surface of
the carbon foam/CNTs becomes hydrophilic, which is ideal for efficient
water supply (Fig. 3d). Figure 3e suggests that the carbon foam/CNTs
achieves a high solar absorption of 98.7% (from 280 to 2,500 nm) after
coating CNTs, compared with the 92.4% solar absorption of the original
carbon foam (see Methods for more details about fabrication). Due to
the excellent thermal stability of carbon foam/CNTs, after annealing at
200, 400 and 600 °C for 2 h successively, its porous structure retains
integrity (Fig. 3f–h), and its solar absorption has been maintained at
~98% (Fig. 3e). Thermogravimetry (TG) also provides direct evidence
of its excellent thermal stability, revealing almost no weight loss below
600 °C. The conventional carbon black/non-woven absorber initially
decomposes at ~70 °C and almost completely decomposes at ~500 °C
(Fig. 3i). Additionally, a bottom stand should have a low density for
floating and low thermal conductivity for heat localization. After careful
analysis and screening, high-temperature resistant aluminium silicate
foam with a low thermal conductivity of <0.03 W m−1 K−1 was selected
for bottom floating and thermal insulation. In a closed system with
high solar concentrations, the heat localization of the solar evapora-
tor is vital to achieving the high temperature of the solar evaporator.
COMSOL simulations show that the temperature of the evaporator
increases by ~100 °C in a closed system when the thermal conductivity
of the solar evaporator decreases by an order of magnitude (from 0.4
to 0.04 W m−1 K−1) (Fig. 3j, Supplementary Note 3 and Fig. 11).
Performance of the SSD-RO/NF device
With the desired design of the SSD-RO/NF device and evaporator, the
performance of the SSD-RO/NF device was next characterized with
a high-powered solar simulator. Figure 4a shows a schematic of the
Nature Water | Volume 1 | April 2023 | 391–398
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00059-8
Sink
Water
inlet
20 cm
to insulate against heat conduction and convection. The pressure sensor and
thermocouples were attached in the booster cavity to monitor the temperature
and pressure of the steam.
experimental setup. Thermocouples located at the above evaporator
(T-steam) and evaporative ethanol medium (T-bulk) were attached
to monitor the internal temperature of the booster cavity. A pressure
detector (P-steam) is mounted on the upper right side of the booster
cavity to detect the real-time pressure of steam. The output of fresh-
water (M-freshwater) was measured by a quality balance. In the proof-
of-concept test, ethanol was chosen as the medium of interfacial solar
heating in the booster cavity because the vaporization enthalpy of
ethanol is ~920 kJ kg−1, which is much less than that of water, and high
pressures are more likely to occur at low temperatures59. The transient
pressure behaviour of ethanol steam in the booster cavity under various
solar power densities is shown in Fig. 4b. The final steady-state pres-
sures reached 0.21, 0.34, 0.60, 0.84, 0.97 and 1.12 MPa under 2, 3, 5, 8,
10 and 12 suns, respectively. The experimental steady-state tempera-
ture of steam is shown in Fig. 4c, which agrees well with our COMSOL
simulation. The minor deviations are probably due to uncertainties in
the experimental measurements and simplifications in the model (see
model details in Supplementary Note 4). Notably, the temperature of
the bulk ethanol increased only slightly under various solar densities,
which means that most energy is utilized for the generation of high-
temperature high-pressure steam (Supplementary Figs. 12 and 13).
Then, we studied the water production performance of the SSD-
RO/NF device using simulated seawater with 10,000 mg l−1 NaCl. The
work process of the SSD-RO/NF device is shown in Supplementary
Figs. 14–16. The results show that RO membrane filtration started at
12 suns, and the water production rate reached 81 kg m−2 h−1 (with a
ratio of the water production rate to the incident solar flux of
6.75 kg kWh−1). The NF membrane is started at 5 suns, with water pro-
duction rates of 40, 78.2, 134.5 and 180.4 kg m−2 h−1 under 5, 8, 10 and
12 suns, respectively (Fig. 4d). Moreover, the SSD-RO/NF device showed
an uncompromised stabilized water production rate after six cycles
(Fig. 4e,f). The ion rejections of the SSD-RO/NF device were evaluated
under 12 suns with 10,000 ppm feed solutions. The results show that
the rejections of Ca2+, Mg2+, SO2− + −
4 , Na and F are 99.98%, 99.96%, 99.98%,
99.5% and 99.97%, respectively, in the SSD-RO device. The ion concen-
trations in purified water are below the World Health Organization
standards for drinking water60 (Fig. 4g). The rejections reached 97.6%,
97%, 97.3%, 73.5% and 97.3% for Ca2+, Mg2+, SO2− + −
4 , Na and F in the SSD-NF
device (Fig. 4g). A comparison of the performance of our SSD-RO device
with several recent works on passive solar steam evaporation
and condensation is shown in Fig. 4h and Supplementary Table 3. The
water production rate of the SSD-RO device is much higher than
393
Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00059-8

a b c

Thermal insulator
floating

d e 100 i
100
After contact

Spectral instensity (a.u.)

98
80
Absorption (%)

102.2° Carbon foam

Weight (%)
96 60
Carbon foam/CNTs
After 200 °C
94 After 400 °C 40

After 600 °C Carbon black

20 /non-woven
92
Carbon foam Carbon foam Carbon foam
/CNTs 0 /CNTs
90
500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 25 200 400 600

Wavelength (nm) Temperature (°C)

f g h j

400

Temperature (°C)
300

200
1 sun
2 suns 4 suns
100 3 suns 5 suns
0.01 0.04 0.10 0.40

K (W m–1 K–1)

Fig. 3 | Designs and characterizations of the solar evaporator of the SSD-
RO/NF device. a, A schematic of the solar evaporator of the SSD-RO/NF device
that consists of a top solar absorber (carbon foam/CNTs) and a bottom thermal
insulator (aluminium silicate foam). b, A SEM image of the carbon foam/CNTs.
Scale bar, 500 μm. c, A high-resolution SEM image of CNTs on the carbon foam.
Scale bar, 200 nm. d, Water contact angles for the carbon foam and carbon
foam/CNTs, suggesting that the carbon foam is hydrophobic while the carbon
foam/CNTs is super-hydrophilic, as a water drop rapidly infiltrates into it in
only 2 ms. e, The solar absorption spectra of the carbon foam, carbon foam/
CNTs and carbon foam/CNTs after high-temperature annealing, suggesting
that the solar absorption of the carbon foam/CNTs remains at ~98%. f–h, SEM
images of the carbon foam/CNTs after high-temperature annealing at 200 °C
(f), 400 °C (g) and 600 °C (h). Its porous structure retains integrity after high-
temperature annealing. Scale bar, 500 μm. Inset: optical photos of carbon
foam/CNTs. Scale bar, 1 cm. i, TG curves of the carbon foam/CNTs and carbon
black/non-woven. j, The simulated temperature of the solar evaporator with
various thermal conductivities in the closed system. The dashed lines refer to
the temperature of the solar evaporator when the thermal conductivity is 0.04
and 0.4, respectively. Much more energy is localized in the solar evaporator
with lower thermal conductivity.

state-of-the-art solar steam evaporation and condensation systems.
Although not within the scope of this work, it shows similar perfor-
mance compared with PV-RO technologies (Supplementary Table 4
and Fig. 17). These results indicate that the SSD-RO/NF device is capable
of high water production rates in which RO/NF filtration is driven by
interfacial solar steam generation.
To further demonstrate the performance in its practical applica-
tion, an outdoor experiment was conducted in Nanjing, China. As
shown in Supplementary Fig. 18, a Fresnel lens was used to concentrate
sunlight onto the device. The real-time solar irradiation during the
experiment was recorded by a meteorological station. When natural
sunlight was concentrated to 16 suns on 1 July 2022, the SSD-RO device
generated a pressure of 1.1 MPa and reached a water production rate
of 144.55 kg m−2 h−1. When the SSD-NF device generated a pressure of
0.7 MPa under concentrated 12 suns on 21 June 2022, the water produc-
tion rate reached 245.07 kg m−2 h−1. The Na+ rejections of the SSD-RO
and SSD-NF devices are 99.5% and 72% (Supplementary Fig. 19). The
NaCl concentration in the feed solution is 10,000 ppm. The water
production cost of the laboratory-level SSD-RO desalination system
was estimated using the life cycle cost method to be about US$11.79/
tonne (Supplementary Note 5 and Table 5).
Model simulation and calculation
To gain insights into the present experiment and obtain a guideline
for further improving the water production rate of the SSD-RO/NF
device, we used a theoretical model consisting of COMSOL simulation

Nature Water | Volume 1 | April 2023 | 391–398 394

 Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00059-8

a b c
200
1.2 2 suns 3 suns 5 suns
8 suns 10 suns

Steam temperature (°C)

150
12 suns

Pressure (MPa)
0.8

P-steam 100

Experimental
0.4
T-steam 50 Simulated

T-bulk 0 0
0 30 60 90 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Time (min) Solar power density (kW m–2)

d 200 e 100

80

Water production rate

Water production rate
150
SSD-NF

(kg m–2 h–1)

(kg m–2 h–1)
SSD-RO 60
100

40

50
20

0
0
2 4 6 8 10 12 1 2 3 4 5 6
M-freshwater
Solar power density (kW m–2) SSD-RO cycle

f g h
5 suns 8 suns
NF RO 100 Condensation
200 10 suns 12 suns 100

Purified water production

Evaporation
Water production rate

80 Our work

rate (kg m–2 h–1)

150
(kg m–2 h–1)

Rejection (%)

10
60
100
40

50 1
20

0
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 F–
Ca2+ Mg2+ SO42– Na+ 1,000 10,000
SSD-NF cycle
Solar power density (W m–2)

Fig. 4 | Performance of the SSD-RO/NF device. a, A schematic of the
experimental setup. The pressure of the steam (P-steam), the temperature of
the steam (T-steam), the temperature of the bulk (T-bulk) and the mass of the
produced freshwater (M-freshwater) during the test were carefully monitored
and recorded. b, The real-time pressure of steam in the booster cavity under
various solar power densities. c, The measured and simulated steady-state
temperature of steam in the booster cavity under various solar power densities.
The data are presented as mean ± s.d. (n = 5). d, The water production rate of the
SSD-RO/NF device under various solar power densities. e, The water production
rate of the SSD-RO device under 12 sun illumination over six cycles. f, The water
production rate of the SSD-NF device under various solar power densities over
six cycles. g, The rejection of five primary ions for the SSD-RO/NF device for
concentrations in the feed solutions of 10,000 ppm. h, A comparison of the
water production rate of the SSD-RO device with previous passive solar steam
evaporation and condensation works. A complete list of the results reported in
this graph is given in Supplementary Table 3.

and numerical calculation. The COMSOL simulation takes the thermal
insulation of the SSD-RO device as input and predicts the steady-state
temperature of the steam. The numerical model calculates the water
production rate of the SSD-RO device on the basis of the simulated
steady-state temperature of the steam. As shown in Fig. 5a (where the
heat transfer coefficient is h = 5 and the emittance ε = 0.86, describ-
ing the actual thermal insulation of our designed device, red line),
the simulated steady-state temperature is in good agreement with
the experimental measurements (Fig. 4c). It is found that, when we
further reduce h and ε, the simulated steady-state temperature of the
steam and the water production rate increase observably under the
same solar power density (Fig. 5a,b). For example, when the thermal
insulation reaches h = 1, ε = 0.15, the simulated steady-state tempera-
ture is increased from 553 to 646 K, and the corresponding water
production rate is increased from 107.1 to 124.5 kg kWh−1 under 30 sun
illumination. When the expansion ratio is further increased (from 5
to 6), the water production rate increases from 124.5 to 131.1 kg kWh−1
under 30 sun illumination. Clearly, further improvements in water
production rate are achieved by further optimizing the thermal
insulation and expansion ratio of the device. More details about the
model can be found in Supplementary Note 4, Figs. 20 and 21, and
Tables 6 and 7.
Conclusions
We successfully developed an SSD-RO/NF device for water purification.
After careful designs and experiments, the SSD-RO device is demon-
strated to have a water production rate of up to 81 kg m−2 h−1 under
12 sun illumination, much higher than previous works on passive solar
steam evaporation and condensation. Future devices with better ther-
mal insulation designs and a more rational expansion ratio to achieve

Nature Water | Volume 1 | April 2023 | 391–398 395

Article
a 700
h = 1, ε = 0.15
h = 1, ε = 0.86
Predicted water production
Steam temperature (K)
600 h = 5, ε = 0.86
500
400
300
0 10 20 30
Solar power density (kW m–2)
Fig. 5 | Analysis and simulation of the SSD-RO device performance. a, The
simulated temperature of the steam with various thermal insulations, including
conduction and convection. The actual thermal insulation of the device (red line)
higher water production rates are desired. It is also believed that this
strategy could improve the decentralized economic feasibility and
reliability of solar thermal desalination devices and contribute solidly
to the global water–energy nexus.
Methods
Preparation of the carbon foam/CNT absorber
Carbon foam of type PPI 110 (110 pores per inch) was purchased from S.
S. New Materials. A certain amount of CNTs was dispersed in a mixture
of water (97.6 wt%) and N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (2.4 wt%) to form a sus-
pension with concentration of 2 mg ml−1 by ultrasonic vibration for 1 h
and then coated on carbon foam with vacuum assistance. The obtained
carbon foam/CNTs was dried at 70 °C in a vacuum for 30 min. Typically,
CNT suspension solution volumes of 3 ml were used to prepare carbon
foam/CNTs with a diameter of 4 cm.
Measurement of water production rate
A solar simulator (HPL-F1000; Ploptics) was used for the indoor
water filtration tests. The solar flux/absorber area was 28.26 cm2 in
the indoor water filtration tests. The incident intensity of sunlight
was measured by using a thermopile sensor (PowerMax-USB PM 30;
COHERENT). The steam and bulk temperatures were monitored by
using K-type thermocouples. The mass change of the filtered water
was recorded by a high-accuracy electronic balance (FA 2004, 0.1 mg
accuracy) and later used to determine the water production rate. All
indoor tests were performed at a temperature of ~25 °C and relative
humidity of ~50%. The RO and NF membranes were purchased from
RisingSun Membrane Technology. The concentrations of ions in the
filtered water were examined by inductively coupled plasma optical
emission spectroscopy (PTIMA 5300 DV; PerkinElmer). The area of
solar flux is the same as the area of the absorber (50.26 cm2) in the
outdoor water filtration tests. The ambient temperature for the out-
door test was ~35 °C.
Material characterizations
Micro images of the carbon foam/CNTs were captured by SEM (MIRA3;
TESCAN). An ultraviolet–visible spectroscope (UV-3600; Shimadzu)
equipped with an integrating sphere (ISR-3100) was used to measure
the solar absorption spectra of the samples in the 280–2,500 nm range.
TG analysis was carried out by using a simultaneous thermal analyser
(STA449; Netzsch) under flowing air at a heating rate of 10 °C min−1.
High-temperature annealing of the carbon foam/CNTs was carried
out by using a ceramic fibre muffle furnace (TMF-4-13TP; Zhetu). The
water contact angles of the samples were measured by using a surface
tension–contact angle meter (Digidrop; GBX).
Nature Water | Volume 1 | April 2023 | 391–398
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00059-8
b
h = 1, ε = 0.15, V2/V1 = 6
140 h = 1, ε = 0.15, V2/V1 = 5
h = 1, ε = 0.86, V2/V1 = 5
h = 5, ε = 0.86, V2/V1 = 5
rate (kg kWh–1)
120
100
80
0 10 20 30
Solar power density (kW m–2)
is described by h = 5 and ε = 0.86 . b, The predicted water production rate of the
SSD-RO device with various thermal insulations and expansion ratios. V2/V1 is the
expansion ratio.
Data availability
The data generated or analysed during this study are included in this
published article and its supporting information files. Source data are
provided in this paper. Supplementary figure source data are also avail-
able on Figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22188103.v1.
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Article
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the micro-fabrication centre of the National
Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures (NLSSM) for technique
support. J.Z. acknowledges support from the XPLORER PRIZE.
This work was jointly supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (nos. 51925204, 52102262, 52003116 and
92262305), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (nos.
BK20220035 and BK20200340), National Key Research and
Development Program of China (no. 2022YFA1404704), Program for
Innovative Talents and Entrepreneur in Jiangsu Province and Jiangsu
Planned Projects for Postdoctoral Research Funds (no. 2020Z018)
and Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics Startup Fund
(4017-YQR22012).
Author contributions
J.Z., X.L. and X.W. conceived and planned this research. X.W., Y.S., W.Z.
and S.W. did the experiments. X.W., Z.L., J.G., Z.X., N.X., J.L. and H.F.
contributed to the thermal model and theoretical calculation analysis.
X.W., Z.L., N.X., J.L., B.Z., X.L., R.W. and J.Z. organized the data and
wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and approved the
final version of the paper.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests. Readers are
welcome to comment on the online version of the paper.
Nature Water | Volume 1 | April 2023 | 391–398
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00059-8
Additional information
Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary
material available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00059-8.
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to
Xiuqiang Li or Jia Zhu.
Peer review information Nature Water thanks Jianhua Zhou and the
other, anonymous, reviewers for their contribution to the peer review
of this work.
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