An all-in-one and scalable carbon fibre-based evaporator by using the weaving craft for high-efficiency and stable solar desalination

Abstract

Solar-driven interfacial evaporation is one of the most promising technologies to obtain freshwater using solar energy. Many promising approaches have been proposed for solar steam generation. However, some problems (the lack of scalability, flexibility, convenience, stability, washability, etc.) in most of these approaches severely restrict their future industrial applications. Herein, utilizing a convenient textile weaving technique, we demonstrate a carbon fiber and cotton yarn mixture fabric, which can achieve high-performance solar steam generation because of the stable and high light-absorption of the carbon fiber and the special structure of the fabric. The manipulation of woven fabric structures can regulate the light absorption and water content in this fabric. The optimized fabric can achieve high photothermal efficiency (1.87 kg m⁻² h⁻¹) under 1 sun illumination. In particular, an all-in-one and large-scale device with anti-salt clogging is easily obtained by adjusting the number of warp threads and the width of weft threads. This designed fabric demonstrates significant potential in achieving affordable clean water from seawater and other wastewater, thus providing a new pathway for the development of high-efficiency, scalable, and stable solar interfacial evaporators.