Nature Sustainability has published an article coauthored by Dr Peng Wang of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and 4 of his former colleagues at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. Entitled “Photovoltaic panel cooling by atmospheric water sorption-evaporation cycle,” it proposes a sorption-based atmospheric water harvester as an effective component for a new and versatile photovoltaic panel cooling strategy. With little constraint in terms of its geographical application and the potential to improve the electricity production of existing and future photovoltaic plants, the cooling strategy can result in less CO2 emission or less land occupation by photovoltaic panels. More details can be found in the full article https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0535-4.
Contributing to global sustainability, the research has been highlighted by Science magazine at https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/new-solar-panels-suck-water-air-cool-themselves-down. Dr Wang also promoted this new technology in a blog post at https://sustainabilitycommunity.springernature.com/users/266280-peng-wang/posts/atmospheric-water-cools-photovoltaics-and-more.