• Advanced Fiber Materials
  • Vol. 7, Issue 5, 00570 (2025)
Zhouliang Chen1、†, Xiaolong Li1、†, Tianwei Zhai1, Zhigang Chen2, Mohsen Salimi3, Majid Amidpour4, and Lisha Zhang1、5
Author Affiliations
  • 1State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China
  • 2College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China
  • 3Renewable Energy Research Department, Niroo Research Institute, Tehran 1468613113, Iran
  • 4Department of Energy System Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran 1991943344, Iran
  • 5Shanghai Institute of Pollution Control and Ecological Security, Shanghai, 200092, China
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    DOI: 10.1007/s42765-025-00570-5 Cite this Article
    Zhouliang Chen, Xiaolong Li, Tianwei Zhai, Zhigang Chen, Mohsen Salimi, Majid Amidpour, Lisha Zhang. Three Birds with One Stone: Decoration of Carbon Fiber Fabric with MnO2 Nanoplates for Efficient Photo/Electro-thermal Evaporation of Seawater[J]. Advanced Fiber Materials, 2025, 7(5): 00570 Copy Citation Text show less

    Abstract

    Photo/electro-thermal evaporation is a promising tactic for alleviating the scarcity of fresh water, but its practical application still faces many challenges such as weak photoabsorption, high vaporization enthalpy and serious water-electrolysis during photo-thermal/electrothermal evaporation. To solve these problems, inspired by black rose petal and electric heater, we report a biomimetic design of fabric for achieving efficient photothermal/electrothermal desalination. The photo/electrothermal fabric is fabricated by decorating super-hydrophilic MnO2 nanoplates as shell on hydrophobic carbon fiber (CF) as core via an electro-deposition method. MnO2 nanoplate decoration as a stone confers three fascinating features (birds): (I) the hydrophilic nature of MnO2 contributes to the fabric’s superhydrophilicity and decreased evaporation enthalpy (2032 kJ kg-1) in comparison with that (2410 kJ kg-1) of pure water; (II) nanoplate structure confers the light-trapping effect and thus the improved photoabsorption efficiency of 95.1%; (III) CF-core/MnO2-shell structure can effectively suppress electrolysis of water and lead to good electrothermal conversion property. As a result, CF/MnO2 fabric-based hanging evaporator shows the high photo-thermal evaporation rate of 2.3 kg m-2 h-1 at 1 sun (1 kW m-2) and electrothermal evaporation rate of 5.3 kg m-2 h-1 at 3 V. Importantly, by the combined effects of 1 sun and 3 V, CF/MnO2 fabric achieves a striking synergetic evaporation rate of 8.5 kg m-2 h-1, exceeding the sum (7.5 kg m-2 h-1) of the individual photo-thermal and electro-thermal evaporation rates. The present high synergetic evaporation performance benefits from efficient photo/electrothermal conversion of the fabric and sufficient water-supplementation at the fiber-water interface resulting from thermosiphon effect. Thus, this study offers a novel possibility in the rational design of photo-electrothermal materials for efficient evaporation of seawater.
    Zhouliang Chen, Xiaolong Li, Tianwei Zhai, Zhigang Chen, Mohsen Salimi, Majid Amidpour, Lisha Zhang. Three Birds with One Stone: Decoration of Carbon Fiber Fabric with MnO2 Nanoplates for Efficient Photo/Electro-thermal Evaporation of Seawater[J]. Advanced Fiber Materials, 2025, 7(5): 00570
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