Synergistic solar-powered water-electricity generation via rational integration of semitransparent photovoltaics and interfacial steam generators

Abstract

Solar-driven interfacial evaporation has emerged as an innovative and sustainable technology for clean water production. Future development of hybrid systems has been of particular interest for solar power enhancement with a minimized carbon footprint. Herein, a solar-powered water-electricity generator is fabricated via proper integration of a semitransparent photovoltaic (ST-PV) cell and an interfacial steam generator (SG). Taking the advantages of an inverted device structure, and controlled transmission and heat windows provided by ST-PV, the ST-PV/SG hybrid system simultaneously attains a high electrical power output of 122 W m⁻² and a stable water evaporation rate of 1.30 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ under 1 sun, which maximizes the total solar power efficiency (88.8%) and surpasses water evaporation of a single SG (82.6%). The performance outperforms a majority of emerging water-electricity production systems, where SGs are integrated with other energy conversion technologies such as thermoelectrics, pyro-piezoelectrics, salinity gradient power and so on. For the first time, this work combines solar-powered interfacial evaporation with a rapidly emerging class of organic PV cells and demonstrates one of the few highly efficient water-electricity production systems, scaling up solar power generation for reliable supply of drinking water and electricity.