Mutual Reinforcement of Evaporation and Catalysis for Efficient Freshwater–Salt–Chemical Production

Abstract

The development of mutually reinforcing solar-driven interfacial evaporation (SDIE) and integrated functional materials/systems to achieve efficient production of freshwater and energy/matters simultaneously under extremely high solar utilization is in high demand. Herein, an integrated SDIE reaction system (reduced graphene oxide (rGO)-palladium (Pd) catalytic evaporator, rGO-Pd) is first reported, where SDIE and the integrated catalytic reaction are mutually reinforced. The apparent utilization of solar to thermal energy by the integrated SDIE reaction system is a combination of evaporative utilization and catalytic utilization. The reaction heat released by the rGO-Pd catalytic evaporator enhances its anti-salt water production performance to a record of 12.7 L m−2 h−1, surpassing the reported performance of other integrated SDIE reaction systems. In the rGO-Pd catalytic evaporator, the synergetic effect of photothermal and rapid mass transfer significantly increases the catalytic activity (turnover frequency) of Pd catalysts up to a record 125.07 min−1, which is about 3.75 times of the condition without light. This integrated SDIE reaction system can effectively and simultaneously produce freshwater, salt, and catalyzed chemicals after evaporating water to dryness. This study paves the way for SDIE's high-performance applications in future integrated water, energy, and environmental systems.