Solar-driven interfacial water evaporation, which concentrates solar heating at the water surface, has attracted increasing interest in pursuing highly efficient solar desalination. The rapid evaporation of water at the light absorber surface would induce a high concentration comparable with that of brine underlying the interface, which however has been paid much less attention and has never been proposed to produce electricity. Here in this work, we proved that, the theoretical real-time salinity power generated between the surface water and bulk seawater could be 12.5 W m⁻² during steam production under one sun illumination. By employing a hybrid system based on a piece of carbon nanotube modified filter paper and a commercial Nafion membrane, we achieved a maximum solar thermal efficiency of up to 75% and derived extra electricity power of ∼1 W m⁻² under one sun illumination. These results provide a novel avenue for blue energy utilization, demonstrating the potential for solar desalination and electricity generation under natural sunlight simultaneously.

中文翻译：

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盐分同时由太阳能驱动的蒸汽生产和发电

太阳能驱动的界面水蒸发将太阳能加热集中在水表面，在追求高效的太阳能淡化方面引起了越来越多的兴趣。水在光吸收体表面的快速蒸发会引起与界面下面的盐水相当的高浓度，然而，人们对此所关注的却很少，并且从未提出过发电的建议。在此工作中，我们证明，地表水和散装海水之间产生的理论实时盐度功率可能为12.5 W m ^-2。在阳光照射下产生蒸汽的过程中。通过采用基于一片碳纳米管改性滤纸和商用Nafion膜的混合系统，我们在一个阳光照射下实现了高达75％的最大太阳热效率，并获得了约1 W m ^-2的额外电功率。这些结果为蓝色能源的利用提供了一条新途径，证明了在自然阳光下同时进行海水淡化和发电的潜力。