Researchers Have Developed A New Tungsten Oxide Nanofiber Membrane

The life on earth is inseparable from the sun. With the development of science and technology, people realize that sunlight provides enough renewable green energy to achieve higher solar-thermal energy conversion efficiency and achieve more efficient water evaporation performance. The topic of photothermal materials----tungsten oxide nanofiber membranes is constantly being explored.

Researchers at Taiwan University of Science and Technology have recently successfully prepared nanofiber membranes by melt electrospinning to reduce tungsten oxide/polylactic acid (WO_2.72/PLA), improving near-infrared (NIR) photothermal conversion properties, which are derived from tungsten oxides, because it has strong NIR light absorption properties. The WO_2.72 nanoparticles were incorporated into the PLA matrix by melt processing, and then the composite was extruded into a linear material using a single screw extruder. Subsequently, a fiber membrane was prepared from the extrusion line of the WO_2.72/PLA composite by melt electrospinning. Based on this technology, it has the advantages of low production cost, green production and pollution-free during the production process, what’s more it  is regarded as another breakthrough in the production of new material fiber membrane industry. This breakthrough has helped to develop new photothermal fiber membranes to enhance the performance of light-driven water evaporation, which is therefore effective in water treatment, desalination, seawater desalination and other related fields.

This new technology is designed for steam generation based on the concept of solar-heated interface for molten electrospun WO_2.72/PLA fiber membranes floating on water by surface hydrophobicity. Using a photothermal WO_2.72/PLA fiber membrane containing 7wt% WO_2.72 nanoparticles, the water evaporation efficiency reached 81.39%, which is higher than the pure PLA fiber membrane used in the traditional process. Therefore, the related research results were recently published in the ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces industry academic journal under the title "Melt Electrospun Reduced Tungsten Oxide/Polylactic Acid Fiber Membranes as a Photothermal Material for Light-Driven Interfacial Water Evaporation".

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