Carbonized Tree‐Like Furry Magnolia Fruit‐Based Evaporator Replicating the Feat of Plant Transpiration

Abstract

It has long been an aspirational goal to create artificial evaporators that allow omnidirectional energy absorptance, adequate water supply, and fast vapor transportation, replicating the feat of plant transpiration, to solve the global water crisis. This work reveals that magnolia fruits, as a kind of tree‐like living organism, can be outstanding 3D tree‐like evaporators through a simple carbonization process. The arterial pumping, branched diffusion, and confined evaporation are achieved by the “trunk,” “branches,” and “leaves,” respectively, of the mini tree. The mini tree possesses omnidirectional high light absorptance with minimized heat loss and gains energy from the environment. Water confined in the fruit possesses reduced vaporization enthalpy and transports quickly following the Murray's law. A record‐high vapor generation rate of 1.22 kg m−2 h−1 in dark and 3.15 kg m−2 h−1 under 1 sun illumination is achieved under the assistance of the gully‐like furry surface. The “absorption of nutrients” enables the fruit to recover valuable heavy metals as well as to produce clean water from wastewater efficiently. These findings not only reveal the hidden talent of magnolia fruits as cheap materials for vapor generation but also inspire future development of high‐performance, full‐time, and all‐weather vapor generation and water treatment devices.

Ultra‐Black Pinecone for Efficient Solar Steam Generation under Omnidirectional Illumination

“…), semiconductors (Cu x S, [ 20,21 ] MoS 2 , [ 22,23 ] TiO x , [ 24,25 ] etc. ), polymers, [ 26–31 ] MXene, [ 11,32 ] carbon materials, [ 2,7,8,33–44 ] and composite materials [ 45–48 ] have been developed. However, there are still many challenges, including material cost, industrial scale‐up, and outdoor performance degradation, that need to be overcome.…”

“…[ 15,54,55 ] Compared with 2D evaporators, 3D evaporators can recover reflection and radiation energy losses and avoid the cosine energy losses under oblique incidence conditions, [ 51 ] which lead to a more efficient SSG process. The development of 3D evaporators is a big step forward to improve SSG performances due to the following facts: i) large evaporation area; ii) good abilities to recover reflection and radiation energy losses; [ 42,43 ] iii) energy absorption from the warm environment. [ 43 ] Unfortunately, few works have focus on the evaporator performances under oblique incidence conditions.…”

“…The development of 3D evaporators is a big step forward to improve SSG performances due to the following facts: i) large evaporation area; ii) good abilities to recover reflection and radiation energy losses; [ 42,43 ] iii) energy absorption from the warm environment. [ 43 ] Unfortunately, few works have focus on the evaporator performances under oblique incidence conditions. [ 51,56,57 ] We have found that the SSG performances of evaporators could be improved by designing microstructure and macrostructure.…”

“…[ 38,57 ] Transpiration of plants provides an ideal solution for SSG because the hierarchical scales and vertically arrayed microchannels are natural and minimized the water transport resistance and follow Murray's law. [ 43 ] By inheriting the moisture‐sensitive deployable structure and porous structures of pinecones and combining the advantages of the transpiration of plants, it is possible to achieve efficient SSG under omnidirectional illumination.…”

Turning Trash into Treasure: Pencil Waste–Derived Materials for Solar‐Powered Water Evaporation

“…[ 8 ] Many researchers have investigated a variety of biomass‐based solar steam evaporators. [ 9 ] For instance, a carbonized mushroom with unique nature structure investigated by Zhu's group was surprisingly found to have an energy conversion efficiency of 78% under 1.0 sun illumination. [ 10 ] Subsequently, carbonized daikon displayed a solar absorption of 95.5%, as well as the corresponding solar vapor efficiency of 85.9% under 1.0 sun.…”