title: Efficient Solar-Thermal Energy Harvest Driven by Interfacial Plasmonic Heating-Assisted Evaporation.
abstract: The plasmonic heating effect of noble nanoparticles has recently received tremendous attention for various important applications. Herein, we report the utilization of interfacial plasmonic heating-assisted evaporation for efficient and facile solar-thermal energy harvest. An airlaid paper-supported gold nanoparticle thin film was placed at the thermal energy conversion region within a sealed chamber to convert solar energy into thermal energy. The generated thermal energy instantly vaporizes the water underneath into hot vapors that quickly diffuse to the thermal energy release region of the chamber to condense into liquids and release the collected thermal energy. The condensed water automatically flows back to the thermal energy conversion region under the capillary force from the hydrophilic copper mesh. Such an approach simultaneously realizes efficient solar-to-thermal energy conversion and rapid transportation of converted thermal energy to target application terminals. Compared to conventional external photothermal conversion design, the solar-thermal harvesting device driven by the internal plasmonic heating effect has reduced the overall thermal resistance by more than 50% and has demonstrated more than 25% improvement of solar water heating efficiency.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University , 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University , 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University , 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Yanming
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University , 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University , 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Chengyi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University , 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Shang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University , 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Jianbo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University , 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Deng
keywords: interfacial evaporation; phase change; photothermal conversion; plasmonic heating; solar-thermal energy