资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Evaporation is the natural process of losing water from reservoirs, which exacerbates water scarcity. The present study aimed to provide a hydrophobic silver‐doped titanium dioxide (TiO₂) nanoparticles coating to reduce the amount of water evaporation behind the dams. Accordingly, the silver‐doped TiO₂ nanoparticles were first hydrophobized using stearic acid (SA). The produced material's properties were identified under various analyses such as contact angle, X‐ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET), energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (EDX), Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy (FT‐IR), Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) and total organic carbon (TOC). The results of the analyses indicated that the synthesized material was sufficiently hydrophobic. Then, the level of evaporated water was measured in three modes of uncoated water surface, water surface coated with hydrophobic silver‐doped TiO₂ nanoparticles, and water coated with hexadecanol (as reference coating) under both experimental and environmental conditions. Comparison of the obtained results demonstrated that the water surface coated with hydrophobic silver‐doped TiO₂ nanoparticles and water coated with hexadecanol reduced evaporation by 39% and 29% in experimental, and 30% and 23% in the environmental conditions, respectively. Additionally, the antibacterial and photocatalytic properties of these nanoparticles helped to improve the quality of water stored in the tank and create less water pollution.

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