Wood fiber aerogel-based super hydrophilic and lipophobic porous structure as a photothermal material for efficient solar steam

ABSTRACT

We demonstrate in this paper a super-hydrophilic and oleophobic green porous photothermal material based on wood fiber as a novel oil-repellent photothermal material for efficient solar vapor generation (WF-SP). WF-SP is an excellent light-absorbing material with the advantages of a porous nanostructure, super-hydrophilic, low thermal conductivity, high-temperature resistance, and oleophobicity. Based on these advantages, WF-SP exhibits good solar photothermal conversion performance with solar vapor generation efficiencies of 85.4%, 75.3%, and 70.2% at 1 kW m⁻², 2 kW m^−2, and 3 kW m⁻² radiation intensities, respectively. The results provide new possibilities for the design and preparation of low-cost, green, and pollution-free photothermal materials with high solar thermal conversion efficiency for solar photothermal conversion vapor generation.

KEYWORDS:

• Oleophobic
• photothermal material
• solar steam generation

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author Contributions

Nannan Qu: Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Writing & editing.

Bin Zhang: Methodology, Investigation, Data curation.

Shuai Jiang & Haijing Lu: Conceptualization, Supervision.

Yuhan Zhang &Lihua Chen: Supervision, Writing-review & editing, Resources, Funding acquisition.

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/1539445X.2023.2288915.

Additional information

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China [21966028];2021 Science and Technology Project of Gansu [21YF5GA062]; The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [31920220043, 31920210062]; the Scientific Research Foundation of Northwest Minzu University [xbmuyjrc 202214]; the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [Grant 31920230142]; Education Department of Gansu Province: Excellent Graduate student “Innovation Star” project [2023CXZX-202].