Carbonyl chitosan-induced solar-thermal healable and ultratough organohydrogel for dual-mode energy production/storage

Non-carbonized photothermal conversion materials (PTCMs) created from polysaccharides are highly intriguing but unexplored for the lacked light-absorbing groups. Meanwhile, macromolecular PTCMs operate as single molecules enable optimal solar-thermal conversion remains challenge. Herein, we employ a molecular engineering strategy to enhance chitosan's absorption by incorporating robust-light-absorbing carbonyl groups to fabricate oxidized chitosan (OCTS) with 408 % enhancements in solar-thermal conversion efficiency due to full spectrum solar absorption. Then the water-soluble OCTS is utilized to fabricate gelatin/OCTS/K3Cit/ethylene glycol (GOKE) polyelectrolyte organohydrogel with excellent solar-thermal-induced self-healing, ultrastrong mechanical and antibacterial properties. The incorporation of OCTS facilitates GOKE to harvest over 98 % full spectrum solar absorption, 92 % solar-thermal driven self-healing efficiency after five cycles, and tensile strength and toughness of 5.53 MPa and 9.81 MJ m-3 benefiting from OCTS's excellent solar-thermal conversion and polyelectrolyte properties, GOKE is assembled into solar-thermal-electric generators (STEG) and triboelectric-nanogenerators (TENG), showing dual-mode electric output (50.3 mA/16.4 W m-2 for STEG and 37 V/16.2 mW m-2 for TENG). Additionally, GOKE-based flexible supercapacitors exhibit energy density of 11.3 Wh kg-1 and specific capacitance of 81.5 F g-1, capable of storing energy generated by STEG/TENG. Noteworthy, this study pioneers polysaccharide-based non carbonized PTCMs with potential applications in clean energy production/storage. attributed to Hofmeister effect strategy. Encouragingly,