Solar steam generation has emerged as a promising technology, for its potential in harvesting solar energy for water purification and desalination. The chitin-based materials have been demonstrated to be efficient solar steam-generation device, and for the first time, the high-performance chitin-based solar steam device was constructed by interfacially polymerizing dopamine (DA) on chitin-based wrinkled hydrogel. Due to enhanced area for vapor dissipation, the wrinkled structure improves the water evaporation rate by at least 13% to 1.57 kg m<sup>-2 </sup>h<sup>-1</sup> from that of a planar structure and exhibits a solar-thermal energy conversion efficiency of 80.27% under 1 sun illumination. This capability of high solar steam generation was attributed to the highly porous structure and channels of the hydrogel. The concave-convex wrinkled surface with a large surface-projected area ratio enabled stronger intrinsic evaporation. These features not only provided efficient light absorption, water supply, and vapor escape, but also suppressed three components of heat losses at the same time. This work could inspire new paradigms toward developing sustainable high-performance solar-driven desalination technologies with abundant and renewable marine resource.

High-performance solar steam device constructed with chitin-based wrinkled hydrogels

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.