Combination of Photothermal Conversion and Photocatalysis toward Water Purification

Natural wood is one of the best candidates as photothermal conversion materials for solar vapor evaporation because of its strong mechanical properties, open microchannels, and low thermal conductivity. However, the low light-to-vapor conversion efficiency of natural wood often hampers its practical application for solar water treatment. Moreover, it is still challenging to remove volatile organic compounds via solar water evaporation. In this work, we report that by combining both photothermal conversion and photocatalysis properties into the same material the as-prepared Ag3PO4@carbonized wood (Ag3PO4@CW) membrane exhibited an outstanding photothermal conversion efficiency of similar to 88.0% under the light irradiation intensity of 1 kW m(-2) and a water generation rate of 1.59 kg m(-2) h(-1) with an optimal 4% Ag3PO4@CW membrane. Meanwhile, the 4% Ag3PO4@CW membrane can be employed for effective and durable desalination of seawater and can remove a variety of pollutants with extremely high efficiency, including organic dyes, bacteria, and heavy metal ions. More significantly, a 99.99% formaldehyde clearance can be achieved for water containing up to 10% formaldehyde. Therefore, we expect this work to offer a new pathway to solve the shortage of freshwater through the efficient use of clean energy by applying Ag3PO4@CW membrane for water treatment.