A pine stem-inspired solar-enhanced lithium recovery system functioned with vapor and salt accumulation

Lithium is a critical strategic while lithium extraction faced with challenges such as slow kinetics and high-water consumption. What's more, high salinity brine has interfering ions hindering the adsorption process. To tackle these problems, a pine stem-inspired tri-functional lithium titanate (Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 , LTO)/ Carbonized aerogel (CA) evaporator (CA@HTO) was synthesized as the key component and integrated into polyethylene (PE) foam platform to create the tri-functional integrated solar evaporator system. On the one hand, the pine xylem-inspired designed aerogel increases water flux, and enriches local Li + supply within aerogel micro channels. On the other, the evaporator shows over 95% solar energy harvesting efficiency to elevate local temperatures, significantly enhancing the endothermic Li + extraction process of lithium-ion sieve (LIS) and solar steam generation. The system doubles the Li + recovery capacity (increasing from 12.66 to 29.12 mg g −1 ) under one-sun illumination, with adsorption kinetics reaching saturation within 6 h—twice the rate observed at 280 K (typical salt-lake temperatures). What's more, the phloem-inspired structure aerogel benefits the directional salt crystallization, which is realized by system design through Marangoni effect. Outdoor solar-powered experiments confirmed the feasibility of stable lithium recovery (>12 mg g −1 ) directly from natural hypersaline salt-lake brines, coupled with self-sustaining water recycling for Li + elution. Salt collection efficiency reaches up to 0.27 kg m −2  h −1 . This work presents an integrated solution for sustainable multiple resources recovery with near-zero water and carbon consumption, contributing to the global target of carbon neutrality.