A novel high-efficiency multi-layer carbon/polyester cotton fabric vaporizer and its application in seawater desalination

Solar-driven evaporation of seawater by the photothermal materials (PM) is considered to be a promising strategy to solve the global water shortage. Fiber-based photothermal material is one of the most important PM materials. However, traditional single-layer fabrics have the demerits of heat-losses and salt-crystallize on the evaporation zone during the long-term seawater desalination, which significantly reduces the evaporation rate of the products. Herein, a novel three-layered 3D spacer carbon/polyester cotton spacer woven fabric (SWF) evaporator is designed. This novel SWF consist of a top water evaporate layer, a middle water transfer/thermal insulation/salt crystal layer and a bottom water absorption layer. The above rational three-layered 3D structure guarantees the fast water-transformation of SWF evaporator while avoid the heat loss from the top layer. The evaporation rate of 3D SWF with 6 mm interval space reaches 2.1 kg·h-1·m-2 in a solar-wind (1 kW·m−2, 2 m·s-1) coupled field, which is proved to be competent for the actual seawater desalinate application.