An effective and
sustainable approach to deal with the
scarcity
of freshwater is interfacial solar-driven evaporation. Nonetheless,
some serious challenges for photothermal materials still need to be
considered, such as long-term stability in harsh environments, eco-friendly
materials, and cost-effective and simple fabrication processes. Keeping
these points in mind, we present a multifunctional silver-coated vegetable
waste biocomposite cryogel that not only exhibits high porosity and
enhanced wettability and stability but also possesses high light absorption
and low thermal conductivity favorable for heat localization, solar
steam generation, and efficient photothermal conversion efficiency.
The achieved solar evaporation rate is 1.17 kg m–2h–1with a solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency
of 81.11% under 1 Sun irradiation. The developed material is able
to effectively desalinate artificial seawater and decontaminate synthetic
wastewater (e.g., water containing dye molecules and mercury ions)
with an efficiency of >99%. Most importantly, the composite cryogel
presents antifouling properties, and in particular, salt antifouling
ability and anti-biofouling properties. Thus, the numerous functionalities
of the biocomposite cryogel make it a cost-effective promising device
for prolonged water decontamination processes.