They discovered that under specific circumstances, light interacting with the water’s surface could initiate evaporation without necessitating heat, and it does so more effectively than heat does.
Light evaporation implicationsThe implications of this discovery are vast.
Additionally, it could revolutionize industrial processes, such as solar-powered water desalination, potentially allowing for a direct conversion of sunlight to evaporation, bypassing the need for heat conversion.
Light as a direct catalystThe research journey began with solar evaporation experiments for desalination, where the team initially used black, light-absorbing particles to facilitate the conversion of sunlight to heat in water.
This color-dependent behavior was a strong indicator that light, not heat, was driving the evaporation.

Light can drive water evaporation without heat