Hygroscopic hydrogels hold significant promise for high-performance atmospheric water harvesting, passive cooling, and thermal management. However, a mechanistic understanding of the sorption kinetics of hygroscopic hydrogels remains elusive, impeding an optimized design and broad adoption. Here, we develop a generalized two-concentration model (TCM) to describe the sorption kinetics of hygroscopic hydrogels, where vapor transport in hydrogel micropores and liquid transport in polymer nanopores are coupled through the sorption at the interface. We show that the liquid transport due to the chemical potential gradient in the hydrogel plays an important role in the fast kinetics. The high water uptake is attributed to the expansion of hydrogel during liquid transport. Moreover, we identify key design parameters governing the kinetics, including the initial porosity, hydrogel thickness, and shear modulus. This work provides a generic framework of sorption kinetics, which bridges the knowledge gap between the fundamental transport and practical design of hygroscopic hydrogels.
Kinetics of Sorption in Hygroscopic Hydrogels.
Carlos D. Díaz-Marín,Lenan Zhang,Zhengmao Lu,M. Alshrah,J. Grossman,E. Wang
Published 2022 in Nano letters (Print)
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2022
- Venue
Nano letters (Print)
- Publication date
2022-01-21
- Fields of study
Medicine, Materials Science
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar, PubMed
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