Controllable 3D interconnected featured pore structure of transition metal borides-carbonitride/MoS2 for efficiently solar evaporation and wastewater purification

Abstract

Interface solar steam generation is considered a promising method to effectively obtain freshwater from seawater or wastewater. Particularly, designing photothermal composites, which are stable in the marine environment, and with controllable porous structure, is critically important. Herein, a multifunctional porous ceramic composite was designed by decorating the transition metal borides-carbonitride with 1T/2H MoS2 (TiB2-Ti (C, N)/MoS2-24 h), which can achieve a high solar absorption of ≈95.3% at full-spectrum and evaporation rate of 2.87 kg m−2 h−1 under one-sun illumination. The super-hydrophilicity, macropore trait, 3D interconnected porous structure, high porosity, and intrinsic nature of TiB2-Ti (C, N) endow the TiB2-Ti (C, N)/MoS2-24h composite with strong salt self-cleaning, stability and excellent durability. Furthermore, another big advantage of TiB2-Ti (C, N)/MoS2-24h is the high pollutants removal efficiency, which attributes to its interconnected featured pore structure, rough pore wall, and abundant active sites of MoS2. As a result, the removal efficiency of heavy metal ions and organic dyes can achieve 99.9% and 100%, respectively. It is anticipated that this work is a promising attempt with enormous potential to develop multifunctional ceramic photothermal composites for efficient solar evaporation and wastewater purification in future applications.