Wood-Graphene Oxide Composite Increases Efficiency Of Desalination

Researchers from the Materials Science and Engineering School of Washington University in St. Louis released a publication claiming to have an improved process for generating solar steam, thus desalination.

It involves introducing a bilayered structure made of wood and graphene oxide. The graphene oxide is deposited on the micro-pours of wood providing a broad optical absorption and high photothermal effect. This results in rapid increase in the temperature at the liquid surface.

Although the wood serves as a thermal insulator to confine the photothermal heat to the evaporative surface, it facilitates the efficient transport of water from the bulk to the photothermally-active space

Because of this structure and the collective properties each component, the composite exhibited a solar thermal efficiency of ~83% under simulated solar excitation at a power density of 12 kW/m2.

Researchers claim that their structure is highly scalable and cost-efficient, though this statement begs to question – who doesn’t make this claim anymore?

Given the market price for a single gram of graphene oxide is $400 I am interested to know how this can be considered ‘highly scalable’ and ‘cost-efficient’!

Source: Future Desalination