Low-cost and facile fabrication of a candle soot/adsorbent cotton 3D-interfacial solar steam generation for effective water evaporation

Abstract Solar-driven water evaporation is considered an environmental-friendly method for energy-efficient clean water production. However, directly using solar energy to generate steam is impractical due to its high cost, complex systems, and low efficiency. Herein, a candle soot (CS)/adsorbent cotton (AC) 3D-interfacial solar steam generation (3D-ISSG) with simple configuration and off-grid operation was reported by depositing low cost and conveniently fabrication candle soot nanoparticles on adsorbent cotton matrix via a simple home-made process. In this system, the 3D photothermal cone was introduced to separate the contact area between bulk water and the CS/AC membrane to minimize the heat loss, accordingly achieving an efficient interface heating to further improve the water evaporation rate. The synthesized CS/AC 3D-ISSG is easy to fabricate, thus achieving a lower cost for water evaporation. The fabricated CS/AC 3D-ISSG achieved water evaporation rates of 1.27 kg m−2 h−1 under 1 sun with a solar thermal conversion efficiency up to 80.70%. The results of this work provide a reference for further study of photothermal materials with low cost and excellent properties and their application in clean water production.