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Upcycling of plastic waste to high value carbon for photothermal evaporator water desalination
Author
Marliyana Aizudin
Supervisor
Ang, Edison Huixiang
Tan, Swee Ngin
Abstract
Water is integral for the survival of life and sustainable development. With the rapid advancement of economic progress, urbanization and an ever-increasing global population, pollution and climate change has undoubtedly placed a strain in the scarcity of freshwater resources. Over the past decades, tremendous water treatment technology efforts such as thermal distillation, advanced oxidation and reverse osmosis have been dedicated to address these global issues. Recently, solar vapor generation has been attracting increasing attention for its minimum environmental footprint by utilizing renewable solar energy for solar-driven steam generation as an effective water purification technology. Thus, this project seeks to address the challenges of plastic pollution by upcycling different common grades of household plastic waste to produce high value carbon nanomaterials through a simple and effective two-step solvothermal synthesis as well as designing a solar still prototype using the synthesized carbon materials as potential solar absorbers in desalination application. Amongst the various materials tested, NTUC plastic bag (PB) demonstrated the steepest mass evaporation loss of 1.50 kg m−2 h-1 with a solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency of 89.8% owing to abundant porosity for fast water transport and excellent solar absorption for photothermal conversion. A thorough study into its synthesis procedure, photothermal properties, characterization techniques, solar vapor generation performance and solar still desalination application will be further explored. To conclude the project, several existing limitations, potential solutions, and future directions will also be provided based on literature knowledge.
Date Issued
2022
Call Number
TD479 Mar
Date Submitted
2022