Multifunctional cotton with PANI-Ag NPs heterojunction for solar-driven water evaporation

Water evaporation using photothermal materials is a cost-effective and sustainable technology for alleviating the world’s freshwater crisis, but oil contaminants and organic pollutants exist in the original water sources, which severely degrade the evaporation performance and pose environmental hazards. In this paper, we demonstrate a photothermal material (multifunctional cotton) that simultaneously demonstrates oil-resistance, organic pollutant removal, and a high water evaporation rate. A Schottky heterostructure was formed between polyaniline (PANI) and Ag NPs, which improved the photothermal conversion and achieved a water evaporation rate of 1.37 kg m −2 h −1 and photothermal conversion efficiency of 84.7% under one-sun illumination (1 kW m −2 ). Notably, various organic pollutants in the water source were thoroughly removed by visible-light catalytic degradation and adsorption, which displayed efficiencies of 99.3% and 97%, respectively. The multifunctional cotton also possessed excellent superoleophobicity, and repelled oil contaminants and organic pollutants in water. Considering these merits, the as-prepared multifunctional cotton is an outstanding candidate for water evaporation from various sources.