Structurally engineered chitosan aerogel enable solar driven interfacial evaporation coupled with PMS activated catalysis for dual-functional water remediation

Solar-driven interfacial evaporation (SDIE) technology is considered as a promising green technology for seawater desalination and wastewater treatment. However, current SDIE systems commonly suffer from high heat conduction losses and insufficient organic pollutant degradation capacity, limiting their application in treating organic wastewater with complex compositions. This study innovatively constructed an integrated system combining SDIE with PMS activation catalysis based on a chitosan aerogel composite (CAC). Through structural regulation of water transport channels, it can reduce heat conduction losses while ensuring sufficient water supply, achieving simultaneous enhancement of evaporation efficiency and catalytic degradation efficiency. Under 1 sun illumination, an evaporation rate of 1.54 kg⋅m −2 ⋅h −1 with a solar efficiency of 105.72 % was achieved. The increase in interface temperature and the concentration enrichment effect caused by evaporation effectively promoted the PMS activation catalytic reaction. Under CAC mediated PMS activation, the degradation efficiency of 100 ppm Rhodamine B solution reaches 92.6 % within 90 min. This study provides new material design strategies and theoretical support for optimizing energy and mass transfer and enabling multifunctional integration in SDIE systems.