美国克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校Guihua Yu团队开发了太阳能净水用自组装模板法制备高弹性互连多孔水凝胶。相关研究成果于2021年11月15日发表在《德国应用化学》。

使用多孔水凝胶的界面蒸发已证明在自然阳光下具有高效的太阳能蒸发性能，以确保负担得起的清洁供水。然而，实现具有持久机械性能的可伸缩且可随时使用的水凝胶材料仍然具有挑战性。自组装模板法（SAT）是一种简单而有效的制备大型弹性水凝胶蒸发器的方法，具有良好的脱盐性能。水凝胶的高度互连多孔结构具有低弯曲度和可调孔径，使得水传输速率具有高水平的可调性。

多孔水凝胶具有优越的弹性，易于加工，经过上百次的轧制、折叠和扭曲后，形状恢复迅速，蒸发效率约为2.8 kg m^-2 h^-1，蒸发率约为90%。预计该SAT策略，不需要典型的冷冻干燥，将加速使用水凝胶太阳能蒸发器的工业化应用。

附：英文原文

Title: Highly Elastic Interconnected Porous Hydrogels through Self-Assembled Templating for Solar Water Purification

Author: Youhong Guo, Luize Scalco de Vasconcelos, Neha Manohar, Jiafeng Geng, Keith P. Johnston, Guihua Yu

Issue&Volume: 2021-11-15

Abstract: Interfacial evaporation using porous hydrogels has demonstrated highly effective solar evaporation performance under natural sunlight to ensure an affordable clean water supply. However, it remains challenging to realize scalable and ready-to-use hydrogel materials with durable mechanical properties. Here, self-assembled templating (SAT) is developed as a simple yet effective method to fabricate large-scale elastic hydrogel evaporators with excellent desalination performance. The highly interconnected porous structure of the hydrogels with low tortuosity and tunable pore size enables high level of tunability on the water transport rate. With superior elasticity, the porous hydrogels are easy to process with a rapid shape recovery after being rolled, folded, and twisted over hundred times, and exhibit highly effective and stable evaporation with an evaporation rate of ~ 2.8 kg m  -2  h  -1  and ~ 90% solar-to-vapor efficiency. It is anticipated that this SAT strategy, without the typical need for freeze-drying, will accelerate the industrialization of hydrogel solar evaporators for practical applications.

DOI: 10.1002/anie.202114074

Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202114074