Developers say that a new material can accelerate the evaporation of seawater desalination plants, thereby speeding up the production of safe drinking water.
Researchers and colleagues from the Far Eastern Federal University, Itmo University, and the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences say that titanium dioxide nanoparticles "decorated" with gold absorb about 96% of the solar spectrum and convert it into heat. Development and testing materials from Spain, Japan, Bulgaria and Belarus. It can increase the evaporation rate of seawater desalination plants by 2.5 times while tracking harmful molecules and compounds.
According to data from the World Health Organization and UNICEF, 2.2 billion people do not have access to safely managed drinking water. One way to provide clean drinking water is to desalinate seawater by evaporating and condensing steam. New materials can increase production by accelerating evaporation.
The team said that its new material can be used as a "nano heater" for water evaporation, and it can also be used as an optical detector in a sensor system to track traces of various substances in liquids.
"Amorphous titanium dioxide nanopowder decorated with gold" looks completely black to the human eye, thanks to its effective absorption of the entire visible spectrum and converting it into heat.
Alexander Kuchmizak, author of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said: “Under the laser irradiation, the initial crystalline titanium dioxide becomes completely amorphous, obtaining strong broadband light absorption characteristics.” “Decoration and doping with gold nanoclusters The miscellaneous materials also promote visible light absorption."
The researchers initially planned to use the properties of this material in solar applications, but they realized that the absorbed solar energy would be converted into heat rather than electricity. Instead, they decided to use it as a nano heater in a desalination tank under laboratory conditions.
The team stated that the production of the material is done by laser ablation in a liquid.
"We add titanium dioxide nanopowder to the liquid containing gold ions, and irradiate the mixture with laser pulses in the visible spectrum. This method does not require expensive equipment and hazardous chemicals, and can be easily optimized to synthesize unique Nanomaterials," said Stanislav Gurbatov, a researcher at the Far Eastern Federal University.
Other properties of the material make it useful for microfluidic biomedical systems, "labs on a chip", and environmental monitoring of pollutants, antibiotics or viruses in water.
The research was published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.
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