Seawater Interfacial Evaporation in Composite Gel Enables Photovoltaic Cooling, Simultaneous Seawater Desalination, and Enhanced Uranium Extraction

Abstract

Abstract Overheating of photovoltaic (PV) panels poses a huge challenge to their practical operation. Herein, a novel design is proposed that uses seawater interfacial evaporation to integrate PV cooling, seawater desalination, and uranium extraction. The sodium alginate (SA) gel with uranium adsorbent filled is utilized to verify the efficacy of this design. As light intensity increases from 0.5 to 1.5 suns, the evaporation rate of doped SA gel rises from 0.98 to 2.62 kg m −2 h −1 , and the output gain of the PV panel increases from 4.9 to 13.1% owing to the cooling effect of this gel. Additionally, a high uranium adsorption ratio exceeding 90% in 50 mg L −1 uranium solution or seawater is obtained under 1 sun (in‐lab). The outdoor experiments imply that the composite gel can lower the surface temperature of the PV panel by up to 12 °C, with a maximum output gain of 8%. Meanwhile, a high uranium capacity of 6 mg g −1 over 10 days is also obtained. In summary, our work shows a meaningful solution for multiple uses of seawater resources and energy through offshore PV platforms.