Construction of interface solar evaporator with a "sandwich" structure and its application in water purification

Abstract

The shortage of drinking water and water pollution are the two major problems facing social development. Although being successful in the production of clean water, traditional interface evaporators are ineffective in the removal of dissolved and non-water-soluble pollutants. This paper follows the design of interface evaporators, with superhydrophobic canvas, filter paper and CuO/Cu2O/copper foam serving as the floating layer, the water transport channel and the photothermal transfer layer respectively. An evaporation rate of 1.18 kg•m−2•h−1 was obtained using the constructed interface evaporator, which had the ability to selectively adsorb floating organic solvents owing to the non-wettability of the floating layer, while the floating layer it had the performance of photodegradable soluble dyes due to the existence of Bi2WO6.