Highly efficient solar steam generation by hybrid plasmonic structured TiN/mesoporous anodized alumina membrane
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ARTICLE Highly efficient solar steam generation by hybrid plasmonic structured TiN/mesoporous anodized alumina membrane Yue Bian, Kun Tang,a) Zhonghua Xu, Jingrui Ma, Yang Shen, Licai Hao, Xuanhu Chen, Kuiying Nie, Jing Li, Tongchuan Ma, Shunming Zhu, and Jiandong Ye School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China; and Collaborative Innovation Center of Solid-State Lighting and Energy-Saving Electronics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
Xiang Xiong National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and School of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
Yi Yang, Rong Zhang, Youdou Zheng, and Shulin Gub) School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China; and Collaborative Innovation Center of Solid-State Lighting and Energy-Saving Electronics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China (Received 19 June 2018; accepted 14 August 2018)
Given the global water challenges, solar-driven steam generation has become a renewed topic recently as an energy-efficient way for clean water production. Here, a hybrid plasmonic structure consisting of a top layer of TiN nanoparticles (NPs) and a bottom layer of mesoporous anodized alumina membrane (AAM) was rationally designed and fabricated. The top TiN NPs with broadband light absorption acted as a plasmonic heating layer, which converted the absorbed light to heat efficiently for interfacial water heating. The AAM acted as the mechanical support layer, guaranteeing the heat isolation and continuous water replenishment. With optimized thickness of the TiN top layer, a solar steam generation efficiency of 87.7% was achieved in this study. This efficiency is comparable or even higher than prior studies. The current work proves the capability of the TiN NPs as an alternative photothermal material.
I. INTRODUCTION
Solar-driven steam generation for clean water production has become a hot topic recently since the global water scarcity becomes more severe.1–3 The mainly investigated areas include but not limited to water purification,4–14 water distillation,15–17 seawater desalination,18–23 sterilization,24 degradation of pollutants,25–31 etc. Despite diverse functions for end usage, the main concept is to generate steam by efficiently harvesting solar energy. For this purpose, various kinds of materials and structures have been selected and designed. Regarding the material selection, the mutually accepted principle is to realize nearly perfect absorption of the solar spectrum. As a result, carbon-based5,8,17,21,32–44 and noble-metal nanoparticles (NPs)9,14,17,18,25,45–54 have been popularly adopted. In fact, transition-metal nitride NPs (like titanium nitride, or TiN) have been proposed as an alternative, potentially applicable for realizing broadband absorption of the solar-irradiation.55–57 The interaction between the Address all correspondence to these authors. a) e-mail: [email protected] b) e-mail: [email protected] DOI: 10.1557/jmr.2018.326 J. Mater. Res., 2018
incoming light and the TiN NPs
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