A novel and sustainable invasive plant wood-based solar interfacial evaporator for efficient brackish water desalination

Traditional brackish water desalination technologies have been facing significant challenges, such as processing complexity, high energy consumption, and operational costs. In this context, using solar-driven evaporation for water desalination represents an emerging, low-cost, and sustainable approach to the global freshwater crisis. To achieve effective desalination of brackish water (or seawater), in this work, we have developed an invasive plant species-based novel evaporator through chemical treatment and hydrothermal carbonization of Rhus typhina L. ( R. typhina ) wood and synergistic modification of treated R. typhina wood with polydopamine (PDA) and Ti 2 O 3 nanoparticles (Ti 2 O 3 NPs). The Ti 2 O 3 /PDA@Wood evaporator exhibits an excellent water transport performance, solar absorption, and photothermal conversion efficiency, achieving an evaporation rate of 2.15 kg·m −2 ·h −1 and photothermal conversion efficiency of 97.84 % in pure water under 1 sun irradiation. In addition, salt tolerance test results show that an evaporation rate of 1.53 kg·m −2 ·h −1 was obtained even in high-salinity water (10.5 wt% NaCl) under 1 sun irradiation, demonstrating the evaporator has certain salt tolerance and self-cleaning capabilities. Moreover, during an 8-h simulated brackish water desalination experiment, the evaporator exhibited an evaporation rate of 1.81–1.90 kg·m −2 ·h −1 , proving that it has excellent stability. This investigation demonstrates the unique design approach of the Ti 2 O 3 /PDA@Wood evaporator developed in this study not only shows an excellent evaporation performance and high salt tolerance but also provides a new strategy for the sustainable and resource utilization of invasive plant species. In summary, this research offers an innovative and effective solution for tackling global freshwater scarcity and controlling invasive plant species.