Issue

Vol. 18 (2026)

System with Thermal Management for Synergistic Water Production, Electricity Generation and Crop Irrigation

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-025-01876-0
Meng Wang
State Key Laboratory of Urban‑rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150040, People’s Republic of China
Zixiang He
State Key Laboratory of Urban‑rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150040, People’s Republic of China
Haixing Chang
School of Resources & Environmental Science, Hubei Key Laboratory of Biomass‑Resources Chemistry and Environmental Biotechnology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, People’s Republic of China
Yen Wei
Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People’s Republic of China
Shiyu Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Urban‑rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150040, People’s Republic of China
Ke Wang
State Key Laboratory of Urban‑rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150040, People’s Republic of China
Peng Xie
State Key Laboratory of Urban‑rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150040, People’s Republic of China
Rupeng Wang
State Key Laboratory of Urban‑rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150040, People’s Republic of China
Nanqi Ren
State Key Laboratory of Urban‑rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150040, People’s Republic of China
Shih‑Hsin Ho
State Key Laboratory of Urban‑rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150040, People’s Republic of China

Corresponding Author: Shih‑Hsin Ho

stephen6949@hit.edu.cn

Nano-Micro Letters, Vol. 18 (2026), Article Number: 57

Abstract

Sustainable water, energy and food (WEF) supplies are the bedrock upon which human society depends. Solar-driven interfacial evaporation, combined with electricity generation and cultivation, is a promising approach to mitigate the freshwater, energy and food crises. However, the performance of solar-driven systems decreases significantly during operation due to uncontrollable weather. This study proposes an integrated water/electricity cogeneration–cultivation system with superior thermal management. The energy storage evaporator, consisting of energy storage microcapsules/hydrogel composites, is optimally designed for sustainable desalination, achieving an evaporation rate of around 1.91 kg m−2 h−1. In the dark, heat released from the phase-change layer supported an evaporation rate of around 0.54 kg m−2 h−1. Reverse electrodialysis harnessed the salinity-gradient energy enhanced during desalination, enabling the long-running WEC system to achieve a power output of ~0.3 W m−2, which was almost three times higher than that of conventional seawater/surface water mixing. Additionally, an integrated crop irrigation platform utilized system drainage for real-time, on-demand wheat cultivation without secondary contaminants, facilitating seamless WEF integration. This work presents a novel approach to all-day solar water production, electricity generation and crop irrigation, offering a solution and blueprint for the sustainable development of WEF.


Highlights:
1 Dynamic thermal management: the system achieves evaporation rates of 1.91 kg m−2 h−1 (1 sun) and 0.54 kg m−2 h−1 (darkness) through energy storage hydrogel-based energy storage evaporator, effectively mitigating intermittent solar availability.
2 Enhanced salinity gradient utilization: integrated reverse electrodialysis (RED) system harvests ~0.30 W m−2 from desalination-concentrated brine, tripling the output of conventional seawater/surface water RED system.
3 Sustainable resource integration: drainage water enables zero-pollution crop irrigation (shoot length ~87 mm, 7 d), completing the seamless integration of water-energy-food nexus.

Keywords

Thermal management Water/electricity cogeneration Cultivation Water–energy–food nexus Sustainable development
Wang, Meng, Zixiang He, Haixing Chang, Yen Wei, Shiyu Zhang, Ke Wang, Peng Xie, Rupeng Wang, Nanqi Ren, and Shih‑Hsin Ho. 2025. “System With Thermal Management for Synergistic Water Production, Electricity Generation and Crop Irrigation”. Nano-Micro Letters 18 (September):57. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-025-01876-0.
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