State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering,Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China
Solar-driven seawater desalination technology has attracted great attention considering its potential to alleviate the shortage of fresh water resources.However, there are still some issues such as inefficient light absorption of photothermal materials, salt accumulation and complex fabrication processes. To address these problems, a simple chemical bath deposition method was used to grow nickel oxide nanosheets with oxygen deficiency (NiOx) on the cotton fabric (CF) surface. The NiOx nanosheets are uniformly coated on the surface of cotton fibers, forming a hierarchical microstructure together with fibers, resulting in high light absorption efficiency of CF/NiOx fabric in a broad wavelength range of 350 to 2500 nm, as high as 96.6%. Based on the CF/NiOx fabric, a tilted solar evaporator was constructed. Under simulated sunlight (light intensity: 1 kW·m-2), the evaporation rate of CF/NiOx is 1.84 kg·m-2·h-1, and the concentrated seawater drips off at the bottom of the fabric due to gravity. After 20 h continuous evaporation, no salt particles appear on the surface of the photothermal fabric, and there is no significant degradation in the evaporator’s performance. Therefore, CF/NiOx fabric demonstrates excellent evaporation performance and long-term stability, which is expected to promote solar desalination technology to practical application.