TY - JOUR
T1 - An integrated solar-driven system produces electricity with fresh water and crops in arid regions
AU - Li, Renyuan
AU - Wu, Mengchun
AU - Aleid, Sara
AU - Zhang, Chenlin
AU - Wang, Wenbin
AU - Wang, Peng
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2022-04-27
Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful to the KAUST for very generous financial support
PY - 2022/3/16
Y1 - 2022/3/16
N2 - Stable supplies of water, energy, and food are the most essential factors to universal achievements of the United Nation’s Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs) by 2030. This work reports a self-sustained and solar-driven, integrated water-electricity-crop co-production system (WEC2P). The design of WEC2P is based on the atmospheric water adsorption-desorption cycle (1) to generate cooling power for photovoltaic (PV) cells to increase their electricity generation performance or (2) to sustainably produce fresh water from atmospheric water vapor to support crop growth. During the 3-month-long outdoor field test, the WEC2P successfully reduced the temperature of PV panels by up to 17°C and increased their electricity generation by up to 9.9% in the PV cooling mode. Meanwhile, it produced water to irrigate crops (i.e., water spinach) hosted in an integrated plant-growing unit in Saudi Arabia, with a crop surviving rate of 95%. Thereby, WEC2P may represent a meaningful contribution to the global water-energy-food nexus
AB - Stable supplies of water, energy, and food are the most essential factors to universal achievements of the United Nation’s Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs) by 2030. This work reports a self-sustained and solar-driven, integrated water-electricity-crop co-production system (WEC2P). The design of WEC2P is based on the atmospheric water adsorption-desorption cycle (1) to generate cooling power for photovoltaic (PV) cells to increase their electricity generation performance or (2) to sustainably produce fresh water from atmospheric water vapor to support crop growth. During the 3-month-long outdoor field test, the WEC2P successfully reduced the temperature of PV panels by up to 17°C and increased their electricity generation by up to 9.9% in the PV cooling mode. Meanwhile, it produced water to irrigate crops (i.e., water spinach) hosted in an integrated plant-growing unit in Saudi Arabia, with a crop surviving rate of 95%. Thereby, WEC2P may represent a meaningful contribution to the global water-energy-food nexus
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/676557
UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2666386422000480
U2 - 10.1016/j.xcrp.2022.100781
DO - 10.1016/j.xcrp.2022.100781
M3 - Article
SN - 2666-3864
SP - 100781
JO - Cell Reports Physical Science
JF - Cell Reports Physical Science
ER -
