With the continuous growth of the global population and the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization, freshwater scarcity has become an increasingly severe challenge. Solar-powered seawater desalination technologies based on interfacial evaporators have received widespread attention. However, the preparation process of interfacial evaporators is complicated, and it is difficult for them to maintain long-term service. Here, a simple method for fabricating solar interfacial evaporators using picosecond laser of wood-based materials is proposed. The surface of the wood-based material after laser processing exhibits excellent antireflective properties. The average reflectance within the spectral range of 200 to 2500 nm is 18.04%, which has been reduced by 40.14% compared to the original surface. The as-prepared interfacial evaporator has a high-water evaporation rate of ∼3.58 kg m-2 h-1 and a solar steam efficiency of ∼92.85% under one sun irradiation during the indoor testing. The outdoor seawater desalination efficiency can reach 1.95 kg m-2 h-1. After desalination, the concentrations of five major ions, namely Na+, Mg2+, Ca2+, K+, and B3+, meet the ion concentration standards for drinking water set by the WHO. This research offers a rapid, cost-effective, and efficient method for seawater desalination, providing a promising solution to freshwater scarcity.
Chu et al. (Thu,) studied this question.