Physics and Astronomy Colloquium
From sunlight to fresh water: nanoscale photothermal effects for desalination
Presented by Alessandro Alabastri, Rice University
Nanosized structures have been study extensively in the last decades for a wide range of applications: from drug delivery to tissue engineering, from manufacturing to electronics. One aspect of nanostructures properties is their peculiar interaction with electromagnetic fields. In particular, metallic nanoparticles (NPs) are capable to couple an incident radiation, such as sunlight, into bounded electronic oscillations, called plasmons, thus effectively squeezing the electromagnetic energy in narrow regions. Such energy is then either scattered or converted into heat. Other types of non-metallic NPs, while being generally less tunable, can provide large light-heat conversion efficiencies on a wide spectrum.
Recently, we have introduced the concept of nanophotonics-enabled solar membrane distillation (NESMD), where solar-driven localized heat drives the distillation process. NESMD is scalable in size, avoids temperature polarization and employs low cost materials. Moreover, the desalination efficiency was found to increase by simply redistributing the photon flux incident on the nanoparticles, suggesting the possibility to reduce the process footprint utilizing miniaturized optics in place of more costly and bulky optical concentrators.
3:30 pm, Friday, February 21, 2020
PAIS-1100, PAIS
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