Speaker
Description
Freshwater scarcity is intensifying alongside the growing environmental burden of concentrated brine from conventional desalination processes. Sustainable desalination therefore requires low-energy technologies that can produce freshwater while reducing residual brine discharge. Interfacial solar steam generation (ISSG) offers such a route by localizing solar heat at the water-air interface. This interfacial heating drives evaporation without unnecessary heating of the bulk liquid. Yet practical ISSG systems require integrated control beyond broadband light absorption, including water supply, evaporation-active area, thermal-energy distribution, vapor release, and salt accumulation.
In this presentation, we introduce three-dimensional solar evaporators that use structural geometry as a design parameter for sustainable desalination. Upcycled PET-based porous frameworks provide capillary water supply and enable moldable 3D architectures. Compound-eye-inspired and inverted hollow-cone structures expand the water-wetted evaporation interface, improve solar-energy utilization, and mediate heat redistribution for enhanced freshwater production. Extending this concept to brine management, 3D-printed gyroid evaporators with discontinuous edge sites guide salt crystallization into predefined regions. This geometry-guided salt accumulation enables continuous salt harvesting during zero-liquid-discharge operation. Together, these results show that 3D structural design can integrate efficient evaporation with salt management and provide scalable strategies for sustainable solar desalination.
