The antibacterial effect, combined with the findings on cyto- and biocompatibility warrants further investigation to the usefulness of chitosan/poly(ethylene oxide) membranes with silver nanoparticles, for clinical applications like guided tissue regeneration.

Solar steam generation has drawn high levels of attention from the research community in recent years due to its wide application and abundantly available energy source—sunlight. To the best of the author's knowledge, a specialized overview of photothermal semiconductor solar steam generation has not been conducted to date. In this review, the recently reported solar evaporators using metal oxide semiconductors as the photoabsorber material are investigated, from the perspective of nanostructure, synthesis method, and installation method. A timeline sequence map is generated with the CiteSpace analysis tool to visualize the trend of metal oxide semiconductors as photoabsorbers. The nanostructure of metal oxide semiconductor is emphasized, due to its significant effect on regulating photothermal efficiency in solar steam generation. In addition, other considerations are suggested to enable a fair evaluation of future synthesized photoabsorbers, including cost, stability, reproducibility, recyclability, and regenerative ability. A brief summary of divergent application of solar steam generation is conducted to show the merits of solar steam generation, as well to provide insights for production of photoabsorbers targeted to varying usage and scenarios. Furthermore, the challenges and opportunities of metal oxide solar steam generation system are elaborated from the viewpoint of the authors, with the aim to provide useful insights for future development of photothermal solar steam generation.

Solar steam generation (SSG) has been proposed in the recent years as one of the countermeasures for solving the increasing risk of water scarcity on a global scale. SSG outshines conventional water treatment technologies with solar energy being its primary driving energy as well as its relatively simple system design. Nevertheless, challenges have been addressed for SSG, particularly the low efficiency of steam generation and dubious economic feasibility. In this study, a solar evaporator consisting of lowtemperature carbonized oil palm fibers with integration of polydopamine is used to construct a biomass-based solar evaporator. Owing to the synergistic effect of the wide solar absorption spectrum of the carbonized fiber and highly hydrophilic characteristics of polydopamine, a water evaporation rate of 1.637 kg m −2 h −1 is achieved under 1 sun irradiation. To demonstrate the ability of the as-designed system for water treatment applications, actual lake water and seawater are employed as water reservoirs, and the water purification effect is assessed in terms of total dissolved solids and salinity. This biomassderived evaporator offers a design rationale for cost-effective steam generation via biomass waste upcycling of the oil palm industry, which is advantageous for the scalable setup of the system in water-scarce, impoverished area.

No abstract