Carbonized loofah andMOF‐801 of synergistic effect for efficient solar steam generation

Abstract

Water transport capacity is one of the key factors for solar steam generation. Inspired by the transportation of water by vascular bundles in plants, the economical carbonized loofah (CL) with reticular structure and MOF-801 with water absorption and rich pores were selected to form a solar evaporator. As vascular bundles, MOF-801 provides abundant channels for rapid water transfer within the light absorbing layer. The excellent photothermal conversion performance of CL provides sufficient heat to convert the water quickly transported to the top of the light absorption layer into steam in time, just like plant transpiration. Thus, the evaporation efficiency of water was improved. The results show that [email protected] composite has excellent hydrophilicity. Under an optical density of the 1 kW m−2, the water evaporation rate of [email protected] was 1.42 kg m−2 h−1, which was about 1.2 times that of CL. The solar-driven water evaporation efficiency reaches 88.9%. Furthermore, [email protected] has excellent stability in water evaporation and has great application potential in water purification. This design principle provides a potential way to improve the performance of solar steam generation and preparing solar water evaporation materials with high comprehensive benefit.