Polyoxometalates-Modulated Hydrophilic-Hydrophobic Composite Interfacial Material for Efficient Solar Water Evaporation and Salt Harvesting in High-Salinity Brine

Solar vapor generation(SVC)represents a promising technique for seawater desalination to alleviate the global water crisis and energy shortage.One of its main bottleneck problems is that the evaporation efficiency and stability are limited by salt crystallization under high-salinity brines.Herein,we demonstrate that the 3D porous melamine-foam(MF)wrapped by a type of self-assembling composite materials based on reduced polyoxometalates(i.e.heteropoly blue,HPB),oleic acid(OA),and polypyrrole(PPy)(labeled with MF@HPB-PPy_(n)-OA)can serve as efficient and stable SVC material at high salinity.Structural characterizations of MF@HPB-PPy_(n)-OA indicate that both hydrophilic region of HPBs and hydrophobic region of OA co-exist on the surface of composite materials,optimizing the hydrophilic and hydrophobic interfaces of the SVC materials,and fully exerting its functionality for ultrahigh water-evaporation and anti-salt fouling.The optimal MF@HPB-PPy_(10)-OA operates continuously and stably for over 100 h in 10wt%brine.Furthermore,MF@HPB-PPy_(10)-OA accomplishes complete salt-water separation of 10wt%brine with 3.3kgm^(-2)h^(-1)under 1-sun irradiation,yielding salt harvesting efficiency of 96.5%,which belongs to the record high of high-salinity systems reported so far and is close to achieving zero liquid discharge.Moreover,the low cost of MF@HPB-PPy_(10)-OA(2.56$m^(-2))suggests its potential application in the practical SVC technique.

Visible-light photocatalytic H_2 evolution over a series of transition metal substituted Keggin-structure heteropoly blues

The visible light photocatalytic H 2 evolution activities of a series of transition-metal substituted Keggin-structure heteropoly blues K 6 SiW 11 O 39 M(H 2 O)·nH 2 O (M=Co,Ni,Cu and Zn) were systematically studied with Pt nanoparticles as co-catalyst.The H 2 evolution rates were 150,98,65 and 48 mol h-1g-1 for SiW 11 Cu,SiW 11 Ni,SiW 11 Co and SiW 11 Zn,respectively,meaning that the order of photocatalytic activity of these heteropoly blues from transition-metal substituted polyoxometalates was:SiW 11 Cu > SiW 11 Ni > SiW 11 Co > SiW 11 Zn.The catalysts could be efficiently reused for at least 5 cycles.