Porous carbon@carbon sponge for enhanced solar-driven seawater evaporation and wastewater remediation.

Utilizing solar energy for interfacial solar steam generation and wastewater remediation is regarded as one of the sustainable approaches for alleviating clean water shortage. However, it is still a great challenge to comprehend all the requirements of efficient evaporation, salt resistance and wastewater treatment as well as low cost in one evaporator, thus hindering its large-scale practical application. Herein, in this work, an environmentally friendly and low-cost hierarchical porous architecture (APC@TMF) was prepared by assembling potassium citrate activated poplar catkin derived porous carbon (APC) into the porous structure of thermalized melamine formaldehyde resin sponge (TMF) by a simple dipping method. The APC@TMF integrates the advantages of APC and TMF, thus leading to good light absorption, low thermal conductivity, high hydrophilicity and fast water transport. As expected, APC@TMF exhibits a high evaporation flux of 2.28 kg m−2 h−1 with energy conversion efficiency of 96.3 % in seawater, which outperforms TMF, PVA/TMF, PVA/APC and recently reported evaporators. Beyond that, it demonstrates good performance for seawater desalination and wastewater remediation as well as high cost-effectiveness. APC@TMF hierarchical porous architecture, assembled by filling poplar catkin (APC) derived carbon into the porous structure of thermalized melamine formaldehyde resin sponge (TMF), is successfully prepared by a simple dipping method, exhibits outstanding solar-driven interfacial seawater evaporation and wastewater purification performance. [Display omitted] • APC@TMF was prepared by assembling biomass-derived carbon into thermalized sponge. • APC@TMF shows good performance in seawater desalination and wastewater remediation. • The hierarchical porous structure of APC@TMF helps reduce the evaporation enthalpy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]