Recently, solar-driven interfacial water evaporation has shown great potential in desalination. In the practical application, the inevitable pollution and the accumulation of salt making the evaporation efficiency cannot be maintained… Click to show full abstract
Recently, solar-driven interfacial water evaporation has shown great potential in desalination. In the practical application, the inevitable pollution and the accumulation of salt making the evaporation efficiency cannot be maintained for a long time. Herein, we reported a flexible and economical superhydrophobic photothermal membrane composed of polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with 1H,1H,2H,2H-Perfluorodecyl triethoxysilane modification, and a piece of expanded polystyrene was used for support and thermal insulation. The prepared floating evaporation device shows a high energy efficiency of 91.1% and evaporation rate of 1.41 kg m-2 h-1 under one solar irradiation, and neither salt accumulation nor significant decrease in evaporation rate of the device was observed after either continuous operate for 40 h or 18 evaporation cycles. In addition, the self-cleaning performance of the membrane enables its surface to maintain high absorbance for a long time. With the stable and efficient evaporation performance of this device, it provided guidance for the application of efficient and long-term stable solar desalination.
               
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