Abstract
The sun is a renewable energy source that can be used to solve many energy and water scarcity problems. However, the efficiency of conventional solar-based desalination decreases dramatically with increasing water volume due to heat loss to bulk water.
This principal limitation may be, however, overcome by using light-to-heat conversion materials floatable on the water that concentrate the generated heat to the water surface and thus accelerate the water evaporation. In this study, we investigated the possibility to produce such material by a plasma-based technique that combines a gas-phase synthesis of Au nanoparticles and RF magnetron sputtering of fluorocarbon films on a conventional gauze.
It is shown that such produced system is not only floatable on a water surface, but it also enhances the water evaporation rate, i.e. fulfils two basic demands on a new generation of nanomaterials for effective solar-driven evaporation.