Morchella-inspired solar evaporator for anti-salt accumulation and highly efficient solar-driven interfacial evaporation

Solar-driven interfacial evaporation utilizing aerogels holds promising potential for applications in seawater desalination and wastewater treatment. Nevertheless, developing aerogels that simultaneously achieve high energy conversion efficiency, superior salt resistance, and cost-effectiveness continues to pose a significant challenge. Herein, we develop a morchella -inspired solar evaporator composed of carbonized straw serving as the solar absorber to achieve high solar absorption (95.2 %) and effectively reduce the material cost, as well as a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) aerogel matrix ensuring excellent thermal insulation, rapid water transport, and efficient vapor escape. Specially, the surface of the solar evaporator is hydrophobically functionalized to enhance salt resistance, which in turn improves the solar steam generation performance. Benefiting from its ingenious design, the solar evaporator achieves a high water evaporation rate of 1.82 kg m −2 h −1 and a high solar energy conversion efficiency of 97.7 % under 1-sun illumination (1 kW m −2 ). Overall, the developed solar evaporator achieves high efficiency, excellent salt resistance, cost-effectiveness, and practicability, holding significant potential for applications in seawater desalination and wastewater purification.