Solar-Driven Interfacial Evaporator with a Self-Powered Detector Based on the Gr@Ti<sub>4</sub>O<sub>7</sub>:Eu<sup>3+</sup>,Yb<sup>3+</sup> Fibrous Membrane
Xiaopan Qiu, Jingshuai Zhu, Yuting Li, Haoran Kong, Qinhuan Wang, Yu Wang
Abstract
Interfacial evaporation is energy-efficient to alleviate the freshwater issues by utilizing the renewable and inexhaustible solar energy. Herein, a fibrous photothermal membrane of Gr@Ti 4 O 7 doped with Yb 3+ and Eu 3+ was prepared by electrospinning, which presented high photothermal conversion efficiency (96.01%), an outstanding evaporation rate (1.82 kg·m –2 ·h –1 ), and a remarkable salt rejection rate (99.997%). These results demonstrated that the combination of Ti 4 O 7, graphene, and rare earth elements achieved photothermal synergy and surpassed a majority of photothermal materials constructed by semiconductors. In addition, based on the biomimetic concept of unidirectional water transfer through trees, a self-monitoring function was achieved using asymmetric hydrophobic modification and an electrical signal of 802 mV was obtained. This work not merely provided valuable prospects for its application in seawater desalination but also discovered a new function for self-monitoring of the evaporation process.