Construction of an integrated multi-layer textile for solar-driven steam generation

Solar steam generation has widespread application in wastewater treatment, seawater desalination, liquid-liquid separation, and other fields, providing potential opportunities for producing fresh water. Up until now, most researchers in this field focused on enhancing the evaporation rate of the solar steam generation device. However, problems in terms of its portability and flexibility still exist when it comes to real application scenarios. Herein, we propose a novel, to the best of our knowledge, integrated multi-layer textile composed of reduced graphene oxide/cotton (RGO/cotton) fabric, cotton yarn, and polypropylene (PP) fabric for solar-driven steam generation. The evaporation rate obtained by the integrated multi-layer textile as prepared is 0.83 kg.m(-2).h(-1) under one sun solar radiation, which is 3.16 times higher than that of blank experiment and is superior to many previously reported works. Its remarkable evaporation performance is mainly attributed to the inherent multi-layer structures, where porous RGO/cotton fabric exhibits ultra-water vapor permeability, hydrophilic cotton yarn supplies water continuously, and low-density hydrophobic PP fabric hinders heat sustainably. Based on the results of application performance evaluation, the integrated multi-layer textile with scalable manufacturability, portability, durability, and flexibility is expected to boost the development of solar-driven steam generation. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America