论文标题：Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation

期刊：Nature Communications

作者：Wenbin Wang, Yusuf Shi, Chenlin Zhang, Seunghyun Hong, Le Shi, Jian Chang, Renyuan Li, Yong Jin, Chisiang Ong, Sifei Zhuo, Peng Wang

发表时间：2019/07/09

DOI： 10.1038/s41467-019-10817-6

微信链接：https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/-eEcgWPH0j2ZGozjTYM2aA

《自然-通讯》本周发表的一篇论文Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation, 介绍了一种可以一边净水一边发电的太阳能装置，有望缓解干旱和半干旱地区能源及清洁水源短缺的问题。

图1：未来光伏电厂模拟图，除了发电还可以生产淡水。图源：Wenbin Wang

全球对能源和清洁水源的需求不断上升，对可持续发展造成了一定的挑战。电力生产有时需要大量用水，净水厂反过来也要消耗电力资源。太阳光作为一种可持续、可再生的能源，能够同时为太阳能电池和净水装置供能。不过，这两种技术的能量和成本效率都很有限。

沙特阿拉伯阿卜杜拉国王科技大学的王鹏和同事的装置结合了现有的两种太阳能驱动技术——光伏和多级膜蒸馏，能够同时产生电力和清洁水源。膜蒸馏是一种先进的太阳能驱动系统，只需相对较低的温度就能完成蒸馏和淡水收集。作者设计了一种三级膜蒸馏组件，把它固定在光伏板背面，利用光伏板散出的热量进行蒸馏。整个装置的效率与一个商用太阳能电池相当，净水产量则超过大部分现有装置。

图2：一体化光伏-膜蒸馏装置（PV-MD）示意图 图源：Wang 等

将两种功能集中在一个装置中可以提高能源效率。作者认为他们的装置能让发电厂从用水者变成清洁水的生产者，有望在太阳辐射充足且淡水匮乏的地区实现废水再利用。

摘要：The energy shortage and clean water scarcity are two key challenges for global sustainable development. Near half of the total global water withdrawals is consumed by power generation plants while water desalination consumes lots of electricity. Here, we demonstrate a photovoltaics-membrane distillation (PV-MD) device that can stably produce clean water (>1.64 kg·m−2·h−1) from seawater while simultaneously having uncompromised electricity generation performance (>11%) under one Sun irradiation. Its high clean water production rate is realized by constructing multi stage membrane distillation (MSMD) device at the backside of the solar cell to recycle the latent heat of water vapor condensation in each distillation stage. This composite device can significantly reduce capital investment costs by sharing the same land and the same mounting system and thus represents a potential possibility to transform an electricity power plant from otherwise a water consumer to a fresh water producer.

（来源：科学网）