Sunlight absorbing titanium nitride nanoparticles

The surface plasmon resonances of titanium nitride nanoparticles are broad and covers majority of the solar spectrum. In terms of integrated absorption efficiency titanium nitride nanoparticles are efficient sunlight absorbers due to these resonances, even better than gold and carbon nanoparticles which have been extensively studied so far. In experiment, titanium nitride nanoparticles were dispersed in water and the evaporation and heating rates increased by factors of four and two, respectively, compared to pure water. Our study shows that titanium nitride nanoparticles are quite useful for solar thermal heat conversion applications such as heating and distilling water.