1 research outputs found
Bioinspired Bifunctional Membrane for Efficient Clean Water Generation
No full textSolving the problems of water pollution
and water shortage is an urgent need for the sustainable development
of modern society. Different approaches, including distillation, filtration,
and photocatalytic degradation, have been developed for the purification
of contaminated water and the generation of clean water. In this study,
we explored a new approach that uses solar light for both water purification
and clean water generation. A bifunctional membrane consisting of
a top layer of TiO<sub>2</sub> nanoparticles (NPs), a middle layer
of Au NPs, and a bottom layer of anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) was
designed and fabricated through multiple filtration processes. Such
a design enables both TiO<sub>2</sub> NP-based photocatalytic function
and Au NP-based solar-driven plasmonic evaporation. With the integration
of these two functions into a single membrane, both the purification
of contaminated water through photocatalytic degradation and the generation
of clean water through evaporation were demonstrated using simulated
solar illumination. Such a demonstration should also help open up
a new strategy for maximizing solar energy conversion and utilization
