Recycling waste carbon fibers for solar-driven clean water production by one-step electrochemical process

Abstract

Waste carbon fibers (WCF), as a co-product of carbon-based textile material, presented a high recycling value. However, it is difficult to utilize the short carbon fibers by traditional process, recycling and using these WCF effectively has thus attracted increasing attention. Herein, we propose a novel strategy that utilizes simultaneous electrochemical exfoliation and deposition processes to convert WCF into photothermal materials. Stainless steel felt (SS) was selected as the substrate to verify this strategy. Through this strategy, the reduced graphene oxide-coated SS (rGO-SS) was obtained. The 2D solar-driven interfacial evaporator based on rGO-SS enabled stable evaporation in actual wastewater with an excellent rate of 1.44 ∼ 1.50 kg m−2 h−1 under 1 sun. Additionally, by constructing a 3D evaporation structure, rGO-SS performed a high evaporation rate of ∼16.88 kg m−2 h−1 under 1 sun. Finally, this work proposes a novel method for the waste carbon fibers and gives new insights into fabricating a novel solar-driven interfacial evaporator.