(218a) Solar Evaporation Enhancment Using Floating Copper Oxide Deposited Cellulose Paper

Steam generation using sunlight is usually done by heating the whole body of the water to boiling or higher temprature which leads to lots of heat losses. Recently using nanofluids has been proposed to increase the absorption of solar heat but dispersion of nanoparticles in the water introduce a new set of problems. Here we demonstrtate new strategy for enhancing solar evaporation using floating by depositing the copper oxide nanoparticles on the cellulose paper. CuO nanoparticles were deposited on the paper by a simple in situ method. The resultant nanocomposite showes very good photothermal properties which can be used to enhance the efficiency of solar evaporators. The composite is kept floating on the surface of water by the help of a layer of polysulfone foam underneath it. Preliminary results showes the composite can achieve a solar thermal efficiency of up to 80% with 7 kW/m² irradiation. this work provide a low cost and effective way to accelerate solar evaporation for broad range of applications.