INTERFACIAL THERMAL MANIPULATION FOR WATER-ENERGY HARVESTING

Abstract

Water and energy serve as the bedrock of social stability, economic growth, and human civilization worldwide. Converting solar/waste heat via efficacious heat harvesting technologies promises to offer clean water and energy with minimal environmental impacts. This thesis aims to explore interfacial heat transport and underlying multiphysics in multi-material systems for advancing sustainable water-energy harvesting through multiscale thermal manipulation. First, we investigate the controllability of inhomogeneous water distribution and heat transport at non-flat water-air interfaces, enabling boosted solar water-electricity co-generation. We then transform the field inhomogeneity into thermal/electrostatic field co-modulation for environmental energy harvesting with a two-fold output increase. Moreover, we delve into the interfacial heat localization-propagation decoupling in transverse pyroelectrics and achieve a five-fold increment in power density for temporal heat harvesting. Also, we demonstrate spatial heat harvesting with techno-economic sustainability by harnessing non-unity flexible thermoelectrics and geometric heat transport. Finally, we summarize this thesis and suggest future works.