Effective solar-driven interfacial water evaporation-synergized adsorption of organic pollutants by the activated porous carbon material

Recently, Solar-driven interfacial water evaporation (SDIWE) has attracted worldwide attention owing to the tremendous potential in the applications of seawater desalination and wastewater purification. Nevertheless, how to effectively utilize the inevitable conduction heat loss and remove the organic pollutants are still challenging. Herein, we innovatively perform the SDIWE-synergized adsorption of organic pollutants by utilizing the conduction heat loss to improve the whole energy efficiency in the SDIWE system. Specifically, the porous carbon (PC) and activated PC were prepared through a facile recrystallizing salt template-assisted carbonization and KOH activation methods. After activation, the activated PC sample at the mass ratio of PC:KOH=1:4 (PC-A4) possesses hierarchically porous structure, better absorption capacity in the full spectrum, high specific surface area of 1867.71 m2 g-1 and large pore volume of 1.04 cm3 g-1. Based on this fact, PC-A4 sample exhibits the high evaporation rate and energy efficiency, which can be further enhanced by regulating the mass of the water body. Subsequently, the conduction heat generated by the SDIWE system was used for SDIWE-synergized adsorption. Notably, the maximum adsorption amount of PC-A4 sample reaches 1610 mg g-1 for the rhodamine B (RhB) at the conduction temperature of 309 K, which is higher than that of the same sample at 298 K. Consequently, this work offers a promising approach for effectively utilizing the conduction heat loss of the SDIWE system and actuating the development of the application in wastewater purification technology.