Polyoxometalates-Modulated Hydrophilic-Hydrophobic Composite Interfacial
Material for Efficient Solar Water Evaporation and Salt Harvesting in
High Salinity Brine
Abstract
Solar vapour generation (SVG) represents a promising technique for
seawater desalination to alleviate the global water crisis and energy
shortage. One of its main bottleneck problems is that the evaporation
efficiency and stability are limited by salt crystallization under
high-salinity brines. Herein, we demonstrate that the 3D porous
melamine-foam (MF) wrapped by a type of self-assembling composite
materials based on reduced polyoxometalates (i.e. heteropoly blue, HPB),
oleic acid (OA) and polypyrrole (PPy) (labeled with MF@HPB-PPyn-OA) can
serve as efficient and stable SVG material at high-salinity. Structural
characterizations of MF@HPB-PPyn-OA indicate that both hydrophilic
region of HPBs and hydrophobic region of OA co-exist on the surface of
composite materials, optimizing the hydrophilic and hydrophobic
interfaces of the SVG materials, and fully exerting its functionality
for ultrahigh water-evaporation and anti-salt fouling. The optimal
MF@HPB-PPy10-OA operates continuously and stably for over 100 h in 10
wt% brine. Furthermore, MF@HPB-PPy10-OA accomplishes complete
salt-water separation of 10 wt% brine with 3.3 kg m-2 h-1 under 1-sun
irradiation, yielding salt harvesting efficiency of 96.5%, which
belongs to the record-high of high-salinity systems reported so far and
reaches zero liquid discharge. Moreover, the low-cost of MF@HPB-PPy10-OA
(2.56 $/m2) suggests its potential application in the practical SVG
technique.