Self-Healing Hydrophilic Porous Photothermal Membranes for Durable and Highly Efficient Solar-Driven Interfacial Water Evaporation

It is highly desirable to develop a solar-driven interfacial water evaporatorwith a self-healing ability and high-efficiency water evaporation performance for water distillation and desalination;however,this process is considerably challenging.Herein,by exploiting the advantages of a self-healing hydrophilic polymer,a self-healing hydrophilic porous photothermal(SHPP)membrane was fabricated by curing a mixture of the polymer,carbon black,and NaCl,followed by removal of the NaCl from water.Since the SHPP membrane could serve as a photothermal layer and water transportation channel simultaneously,a solar-driven interfacial evaporator could be fabricated readily by assembling the SHPP membrane with polyethylene foam.We have shown that the SHPP membrane-based evaporator exhibited a water evaporation rate of 1.68 kg m^(−2) h^(−1) and an energy efficiency of 97.3%.These values are superior to those obtained using solar-driven interfacial evaporators with self-healing capability.Notably,by hydrogen bonds reformation between the fracture surfaces,the SHPP membrane could regain its structural integrity after breaking,making the SHPPmembrane-based evaporator the first to heal entirely and repeatedly from physical damage to sustain itswater evaporation capacity.Therefore,the potential of using SHPP membranes to develop stable,long-last ing,andhigh-efficiency solar-driven interfacial water evaporators is highlighted.