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Frequency-dependent stability of CNT Joule heaters in ionizable media and desalination processes

Nature Nanotechnology volume 12, pages 557–563 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Water shortages and brine waste management are increasing challenges for coastal and inland regions, with high-salinity brines presenting a particularly challenging problem. These high-salinity waters require the use of thermally driven treatment processes, such as membrane distillation, which suffer from high complexity and cost. Here, we demonstrate how controlling the frequency of an applied alternating current at high potentials (20 Vpp) to a porous thin-film carbon nanotube (CNT)/polymer composite Joule heating element can prevent CNT degradation in ionizable environments such as high-salinity brines. By operating at sufficiently high frequencies, these porous thin-films can be directly immersed in highly ionizable environments and used as flow-through heating elements. We demonstrate that porous CNT/polymer composites can be used as self-heating membranes to directly heat high-salinity brines at the water/vapour interface of the membrane distillation element, achieving high single-pass recoveries that approach 100%, far exceeding standard membrane distillation recovery limits.

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Figure 1: Comparison of classical and directly heated membrane distillation.
Figure 2: Spray-coated CNT–PVA porous self-heating films on PTFE supports.
Figure 3: Stability of CNT films under different electrical conditions.
Figure 4: Demonstration of direct surface heating for brine desalination using MD.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate the funding from the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship: water sense—water social, engineering, and natural sciences engagement program (award abstract no. 1144635), ACS Petroleum Research Fund (54649-dni9), and the Office of Naval Research (n00014-14-1-0809). In addition, this work was undertaken in collaboration with the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with funding under subcontract XEU-6-62543-01 and prime contract DE-AC36-08GO28308.

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  1. Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Bourns Hall A241, Riverside, 92521, California, USA

    Alexander V. Dudchenko, Chuxiao Chen, Alexis Cardenas, Julianne Rolf & David Jassby

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  1. Alexander V. Dudchenko
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Contributions

D.J. and A.V.D. conceived the idea, designed the experiments and wrote the manuscript. A.V.D. performed experiments, data analysis, EIS fitting and FEM simulations. C.C., A.C. and J.R. assisted in material synthesis and characterization.

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Correspondence to David Jassby.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Dudchenko, A., Chen, C., Cardenas, A. et al. Frequency-dependent stability of CNT Joule heaters in ionizable media and desalination processes. Nature Nanotech 12, 557–563 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2017.102

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