Personal information

Curriculum Vitae

Xiaolong Ma is now working as a postdoctoral research associate at the Chair of Thermodynamics. He obtained his PhD from the University of Leeds (UK) in School of Chemical and Process Engineering, with the topic of Continuous Solar Vapour Generation and Salt Harvesting from Seawater. He has a strong background in chemical engineering, and is skilled in material science, energy engineering, solar energy, and petrochemical engineering.

Teaching Work

Course: Desalination

Internship: Renewable Energies-Photovoltaic

Research Interests

• Desalination
• Solar Energy
• Green Energy Materials
• Interfacial Evaporation

Links

Google Scholar

Research project

Efficient solar desalination with exploring new form of evaporation

Background

Solar interfacial desalination, which uses photothermal materials at the water-air interface to convert solar energy into heat to desalinate seawater by evaporation, is a promising technology to mitigate the water scarcity problem in a green and sustainable way. However, it severely suffers heat loss to the bulk water below, and with evaporation salt accumulates on the photothermal material to prevent continuous operation.

More importantly, various collector designs using different materials and nanostructures, show a surprising high energy conversion efficiency. The results are very even over the theoretical maximum limit, by assuming all solar energy is used to convert water to steam under ambient conditions. One of the key issues that has been discussed is a possible form of evaporation with water clusters from nanostructures, which could be responsible for the reported abnormal high evaporation rate.

Aim and Objectives

Aim: Desalinate seawater in an efficient way by solar energy.

Objectives:

i) develop efficient photothermal materials

ii) develop efficient solar evaporators

iii) explore the new form of evaporation by water clusters that decreases the required energy for evaporation.

Methods

Enthalpy is a thermodynamic state property and it is still debatable on the effect of the presence of a possible intermediate state inside nanopores, and the mechanism of evaporation enthalpy change remains unclear; the relation between its value in individual nanopores and bulk materials is not known; and how to engineering enthalpy value by using different nanostructures to maximum vapor production presents an urgent issue to solve. As to the modelling side, a common approach relies on some empirical correlations, and neglects many unique features at the nanoscale. For instance, bulk properties typically are used in the modelling, the large surface-to-volume ratio at the nanoscale, however, show strong size-dependent properties, i.e., the evaporation enthalpy, thermal conductivity and specific heat values will be largely different to their counterparts at the macroscale, which shall be properly considered.

Publications

1.            Zhang, C.; Gao, H.; Zhao, J. J.; Zhou, J. J.; Ma, X. L.; Wen, D. S. Dynamic coking simulation of supercritical n-decane in circular tubes. Fuel. 2023, 331.

2.            Kang, Z. Y.; Gao, H.; Ma, X. L.; Jia, X. D.; Wen, D. S. Fe-Ni/MWCNTs Nano-Composites for Hexavalent Chromium Reduction in Aqueous Environment. Molecules. 2023, 28 (11).

3.            Kang, Z. Y.; Jia, X. D.; Ma, X. L.; Wen, D. S.; Carniato, F. Modelling and Prediction of Fe/MWCNT Nanocomposites for Hexavalent Chromium Reduction. Processes. 2023, 11 (12).

4.            Ma, X.; Jia, X.; Yao, G.; Wen, D. Umbrella evaporator for continuous solar vapor generation and salt harvesting from seawater. Cell Reports Physical Science 2022, 3 (7), 100940.

5.            Ma, X. L.; Jia, X. D.; Yao, G.; Wen, D. S. Double-Sided Suspending Evaporator with Top Water Supply for Concurrent Solar Evaporation and Salt Harvesting. ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng. 2022

6.            Ma, X.; Jia, X.; Gao, H.; Wen, D. Polypyrrole–Dopamine Nanofiber Light-Trapping Coating for Efficient Solar Vapor Generation. ACS Appl. Mater. Inter. 2021, 57153-57162.

7.            Xia, D.; Xu, Y. F.; Mannering, J.; Ma, X. L.; Ismail, M. S.; Borman, D.; Baker, D. L.; Pourkashanian, M.; Menzel, R. Tuning the Electrical and Solar Thermal Heating Efficiencies of Nanocarbon Aerogels. Chem. Mater. 2021, 33 (1), 392-402.

8.            Zou, T.; Liu, J. B.; Yu, H. B.; Zhang, X.; Ma, X. L. Automatic load change coordinated control of air separation units. Control Engineering Practice 2019, 84, 194-207.

9.            Zhang, Z. S.; Ma, X. L.; Li, H.; Li, X. G.; Gao, X. Understanding the pyrolysis progress physical characteristics of Indonesian oil sands by visual experimental investigation. Fuel 2018, 216, 29-35.

10.          Ma, X. L.; Ridner, D.; Zhang, Z. S.; Li, X. G.; Li, H.; Sui, H.; Gao, X. Study on vacuum pyrolysis of oil sands by comparison with retorting and nitrogen sweeping pyrolysis. Fuel Process. Technol. 2017, 163, 51-59.