Pure water production by solar distillation under no light concentration is attracting ever greater attention in the rural area with electricity limit due to its constant energy input. Meanwhile, the polluted raw water in these areas also lacks effective decontamination treatment. Rather than relying on external steps for decontamination process, photothermal materials with pollutant removal ability would have better water cleaning performance. Here, we designed a multifunctional photothermal material based on a copper mesh with abundant CuO nanowires. This CuO nanowire mesh exhibited a high solar absorption of 93% and superhydrophilicity for water transport, contributing to a high solar vapor efficiency of 84.4% under onesun illumination. Besides, the CuO nanowires possessed a great catalytic ability for the degradation of contaminants in raw water. Moreover, the diffusion inhibition test showed a clear antimicrobial effect of the CuO nanowire mesh on the bacteria. Hence, the as-prepared multifunctional CuO nanowire mesh allows for the incorporation of solar evaporation, pollutant degradation, and antibacterial action, which holds great application potential in the pure water production in solar distillation.
Our daily electromagnetic environment is becoming increasingly complex with the rapid development of consumer electronics and wireless communication technologies, which in turn necessitates the development of electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, especially for transparent components. We engineered a transparent EMI shielding film with crack-template based metallic mesh (CT-MM) that shows highly homogeneous light transmission and strong microwave shielding efficacy. The CT-MM film is fabricated using a cost-effective lift-off method based on a crackle template. It achieves a shielding effectiveness of ~26 dB, optical transmittance of ~91% and negligible impact on optical imaging performance. Moreover, high–quality CT-MM film is demonstrated on a large–calibre spherical surface. These excellent properties of CT-MM film, together with its advantages of facile large-area fabrication and scalability in processing on multi-shaped substrates, make CT-MM a powerful technology for transparent EMI shielding in practical applications.
Solar distillation is emerging as a robust and energy-effective tool for water purification and freshwater production. However, many water sources contain harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can evaporate through the photothermal evaporators and be collected together with distilled water, or even be enriched in the distilled water. In view of the penetration of volatile organic compounds, herein, we rationally demonstrate a dual-scale porous, photothermal/ photocatalytic, flexible membrane for intercepting volatile organic compounds during solar distillation, which is based on a mesoporous oxygen-vacancy-rich TiO 2−x nanofibrous membrane (m-TiO 2−x NFM). The dual-scale porous structure was constructed by micrometer-sized interconnected tortuous pores formed by the accumulation of m-TiO 2−x nanofibers and nanometer-sized pores in the m-TiO 2−x individual nanofibers. Consequently, the membrane can sustainably in situ intercept VOCs by providing more photocatalytic reactive sites for collision (mainly by mesopores) and longer tortuous channels for prolonging VOC retention (mainly by micrometer-sized pores); thus, it results in less than 5% of phenol residual in distilled water. As a proof of concept, when the m-TiO 2−x NFM is employed to purify practical river water in an evaporation prototype under real solar irradiation, complex volatile natural organic contaminants can be effectively intercepted and the produced distilled water meets the drinking water standards of China. This development will promote the application prospects of solar distillation.
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