Clay-based aerogel combined with CuS for solar-driven interfacial steam generation and desalination

Abstract

Solar-driven water purification is a promising technology that can effectively utilize solar energy for seawater desalination. However, poor materials are unable to meet the dense energy of solar steam generation in natural sunlight for real-time practical applications. Therefore, the demand for energy density can be increased by using improved semiconductor aerogel materials. Here, we report a simple chemical method to obtain a CuS@ATP/PS composite aerogel (named CuAP), which was made of attapulgite (ATP) and CuS loaded onto it using an N-template to give it good photothermal characteristics (CuS@ATP), and then cross-link it with potato starch (PS). The evaporation rate of CuAP-15 aerogel in pure water at 1 kW m−2 solar radiation is 1.57 kg m−2 h−1. Meanwhile, CuAP-15 aerogel showed excellent salt resistance with an evaporation rate of 1.35 kg m−2 h−1 in 20 wt% NaCl solution. And also exhibited excellent cycling durability in cycling stability tests. More importantly, the freshwater yield can reach 6.54 kg m−2 under natural light irradiation for 11 h. Therefore, CuAP aerogel has a great prospect of application in the field of seawater desalination in the future.