Water scarcity is a growing global challenge. Developing energy-efficient and sustainable desalination methods is crucial to addressing the global water crisis. In recent years, hydrogel-based desalination has emerged as a promising approach due to the excellent water absorption capacity and stimuli-responsive properties of hydrogels. However, conventional dewatering methods for recovering water from hydrogels often suffer from low efficiency and poor stability. To address these challenges, a novel approach using ammonia gas to dewater poly(acrylic acid-co-acrylamide) hydrogels was investigated, achieving significantly higher dewatering rates (up to 110 g_H2O/g_hydrogel/h), among the highest reported, with water production rates ranging from 600 to 1140 L_H2O/kg_hydrogel/day and an average salt rejection of around 60% for both synthetic and real seawater water. The process also demonstrated excellent stability, maintaining a consistent performance over 100 cycles. This technology shows great potential for desalinating brackish water for agricultural irrigation or integration with reverse osmosis systems for seawater desalination, significantly reducing energy consumption and capital costs. This innovative dewatering method could enable practical applications of hydrogel-based desalination.

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使用氨气脱水解锁基于水凝胶的海水淡化

水资源短缺是一个日益严峻的全球性挑战。开发节能和可持续的海水淡化方法对于解决全球水危机至关重要。近年来，由于水凝胶优异的吸水能力和刺激响应特性，基于水凝胶的海水淡化已成为一种很有前途的方法。然而，从水凝胶中回收水的传统脱水方法往往效率低且稳定性差。为了应对这些挑战，研究了一种使用氨气对聚（丙烯酸 -共丙烯酰胺）水凝胶进行脱水的新方法，该方法实现了显著提高的脱水速率（高达 110 g_H2O/g _水凝胶 /h），是报告的最高脱水速率之一，产水速率范围为 600 至 1140 L_H2O/kg _水凝胶 /天，合成水和真实海水的平均脱盐率约为 60%。该工艺还表现出出色的稳定性，在 100 次循环中保持一致的性能。这项技术在淡化苦咸水用于农业灌溉或与反渗透系统集成用于海水淡化方面显示出巨大潜力，可显著降低能耗和资本成本。这种创新的脱水方法可以实现基于水凝胶的海水淡化的实际应用。