Hollow spherical SiO micro-container encapsulation of LiCl for high-performance simultaneous heat reallocation and seawater desalination

Energy & fresh water have both become scarce resources in the modern era of human society. Sorption-based technology is environmentally friendly and energy-efficient and can be driven by low-grade energy to transfer energy and produce fresh water. Here, we report a solid sorbent fabricated by encapsulating a hygroscopic salt, lithium chloride (LiCl), inside micro-sized hollow-structured SiO 2 . This composite sorbent (LiCl@HS) exhibits 6 times faster water vapor sorption kinetics than pure LiCl and a water vapor sorption capacity of 1.7 kg kg 1 at a relative humidity (RH) of 50%, which is the highest ever reported for any solid sorbent in the literature. The low regeneration temperature (