Harnessing abundant renewable resources and pollutants on a large scale to address environmental challenges while providing sustainable freshwater is a significant endeavor. In this study, we present the design of fully functional solar vaporization devices (SVD) based on organic‐inorganic hybrid nanocomposites (CCMs‐x). These devices exhibit efficient photothermal properties that facilitate multi‐targeted interfacial reactions, enabling simultaneous catalysis of sewage and desalination. The localized interfacial heating generated by the photothermal effect of CCMs‐x triggers surface‐dominated catalysis and steam generation. The CCMs‐x SVD achieves a solar water‐vapor generation rate of 1.41 kg m−2 h−1 (90.8%), and it achieves over 95% removal of pollutants within 60 min under one‐sun for practical application. The exceptional photothermal conversion rate of wastewater for environmental remediation and water capture is attributed to customized microenvironments within the system. The integrated parallel reaction system in SVD ensures it a real‐life application in multiple scenarios such as municipal, medical wastewater and brine containing high concentrations. Additionally, the SVD exhibits long‐term durability, antifouling functionality toward complex ionic contaminants. This study not only demonstrates a One‐Stone‐Two‐Birds strategy for large scale directly producing the potable water from polluted seawater, but also open up to exciting possibilities of parallel production of energy and water resources.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
Complex multi-metallic alloys with ultra-small sizes have received extensive attention in the fields of Zn-air battery and water splitting, because of their unique advantages including adjustable composition, tailorable active site,...
Piezoelectric mesocrystals as defective materials have been demonstrated to possess adsorptive and catalytic properties in redox reactions. However, there is still a lack of research on the quantitative relationship between the defect concentration and the piezocatalytic performance in piezoelectric mesocrystals. Herein, twin‐hierarchical structure ZnO piezoelectric mesocrystals are taken with different oxygen‐vacancies (OVs) concentrations to quantitatively investigate the effect of defect content on the peroxymonosulfate (PMS) piezo‐activation in water purification. The ZnO piezoelectric mesocrystal with moderate OVs concentration exhibits a rapid antibiotic ornidazole (ORZ) pollutants degradation rate (0.034 min−1) and achieves a high PMS utilization efficiency (0.162) that exceeds the most state‐of‐the‐art catalytic processes, while excessive OVs suppressed the piezocatalytic performance. Through calculations of electron property and reactants affinity, a quantitative relationship between OVs concentration and piezocatalytic properties is established. The ZnO mesocrystal with moderate OVs concentration realized increased electron delocalization, reduced charge transfer barrier, and enhanced reactants affinity, thus accelerating the kinetics of PMS activation. This work provides theoretical guidance for the application of defect engineering in mesocrystal to realize enhanced piezocatalytic performance.
Photocatalytic water splitting is one of the promising approaches to solving environmental problems and energy crises. However, the sluggish 4e− transfer kinetics in water oxidation half-reaction restricts the 2e− reduction efficiency in photocatalytic water splitting. Herein, cobalt vanadate-decorated polymeric carbon nitride (named CoVO/PCN) was constructed to mediate the carrier kinetic process in a photocatalytic water oxidation reaction (WOR). The photocatalysts were well-characterized by various physicochemical techniques such as XRD, FT-IR, TEM, and XPS. Under UV and visible light irradiation, the O2 evolution rate of optimized 3 wt% CoVO/PCN reached 467 and 200 μmol h−1 g−1, which were about 6.5 and 5.9 times higher than that of PCN, respectively. Electrochemical tests and PL results reveal that the recombination of photogenerated carriers on PCN is effectively suppressed and the kinetics of WOR is significantly enhanced after CoVO introduction. This work highlights key features of the tuning carrier kinetics of PCN using charge-conducting materials, which should be the basis for the further development of photocatalytic O2 reactions.
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