A Wave-Driven Piezoelectric Solar Evaporator for Water Purification

Interfacial solar vapor generation is an emerging technology that has the potential to alleviate the current global water crisis. However, water evaporation is an energy-intensive phase-change process and thus suffers from an inherently low evaporation yield. New stable and environmentally tolerant materials that can reduce energy requirements and accelerate water evaporation stand out from various studies. In this contribution, a piezoelectric ultrathin nanofilm is integrated into a solar evaporation membrane for simultaneous power generation and water activation. The resulting evaporator is used to continuously convert the wave energy in the ocean into electrical energy. It is found that the electrical energy generated by the evaporator can activate water in adjacent regions, facilitating water evaporation with an additional improvement of over 20% compared to an equivalent non-piezoelectric evaporator. This paper presents the innovation of a promising membrane evaporation prototype based on the integration of wave-triggered electricity and water activation.