Petroleum Coke Embedded in Cigarette Butts: All Waste-Derived Solar Evaporator for Effective Water Evaporation

Solar-driveninterfacial evaporation is an eco-friendly solutionfor tackling the impending water scarcity the world is facing in ourcentury. In this work, a solar-driven interfacial evaporator was preparedfrom cigarette butts loaded with petroleum coke powder (Filter-PetCoke),a by-product of the oil refinery processes, for the improvement ofthe absorption of the incident solar light. A comparison between aflat 2D and a 3D evaporator with a surface composed of orderly patternedprotrusions of 2.1 cm was carried out to assess the influence of theevaporator configuration on the evaporation performance. The 3D evaporator(3D Filter-PetCoke) achieved by far the best performance (evaporationrate: 1.97 & PLUSMN; 0.08 kg m(-2) h(-1) and solar conversion efficiency: 93.2 & PLUSMN; 5.4%) among the preparedsamples (3D Filter-PetCoke, 3D Filter, 2D Filter-PetCoke, and 2D Filter).In addition, this configuration seems to be adaptable for real andmore massive operation because of the geometry of the evaporator.The high efficiency was ascribed to the good heat generation of thepetroleum coke and the excellent heat management of the 3D structureof the evaporator. Moreover, this evaporator was resistant to multiplerepeated usages without significant efficiency loss and capable ofproducing drinking water from seawater and Escherichiacoli (E. coli)-contaminatedwater. The findings in this work indicate that this evaporator ispertinent to real situations to supply safe freshwater very efficientlyfrom chemically/biologically contaminated water.