Dr. Yongzhe Chen’s recent publication on Nature Communication

Assessing global drinking water potential from electricity-free solar water evaporation device

Congratulations to Dr. Yongzhe Chen on publishing a research article on Nature Communication. The title of the article is “Assessing global drinking water potential from electricity-free solar water evaporation device” and it is now available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-51115-0 

Universal and equitable access to affordable safely managed drinking water (SMDW) is a significant challenge and is highlighted by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals-6.1. This study uses a condensation-enhanced strategy and develops a physics-guided machine learning model for assessing the global potential of SWE technology to meet SMDW demand without electricity. The research demonstrates that a 1 m² SWE device can produce 2.5 L/day of clean water, sufficient for 95.8% of the unserved population. Scaling this technology could achieve universal SMDW access by 2030 at an annual cost of $10.4 billion - 66.7% cheaper than current investments - while meeting UN Sustainable Development Goal 6.1.

Outdoor evaluation of solar-to-water conversion in solar water evaporation (SWE) devices.

The potential safely managed drinking water (SMDW) yield of solar evaporation and the distribution of the population without the SMDW.

Reference: W. Zhang, Y. Chen, Q. Ji et al. “Assessing global drinking water potential from electricity-free solar water evaporation device,” in Nature Communication, vol. 15, 6784, 2024, doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-51115-0.

Keywords: Solar water evaporation (SWE), safely managed drinking water (SMDW), condensation-enhanced, physics-guided machine learning, global water scarcity, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.1, cost-effective purification.