Phonon-Engineered Hard-Carbon Nanoflorets Achieving Rapid and Efficient Solar-Thermal Based Water Evaporation and Space-Heating

Generation and utilization of green heat produced from solar energy demand broadband absorbers with the elusive combination of strong phonon-driven photon thermalization and, contrastingly, weak phonon-lattice thermal conductivity. Here, we report a new class of porous, nanostructured hard-carbon florets (NCFs) consisting of isotropically assembled conical microcavities for greater light entrapment and efficient broad-band absorption (95% over 250–2500 nm). Resembling marigolds, the NCF exhibits short-range graphitic order that promotes instantaneous and efficient solar-thermal conversion (η STC = 87%) while exhibiting long-range intrinsic disorder providing low thermal conductivity (1.5 W m –1 K –1 ) to minimize thermal loss (13%). Solution processable NCF coatings on arbitrarily substrates (filter paper, terracotta, Cu and Al tubes) generate surface temperature of 400 ± 2 K and exhibit high thermal effusance (519 W s 0.5 m –2 K –1 ) to achieve highest combination of (a) rate of solar-driven interfacial water evaporation ( R w = 5.4 kg m –2 h –1, 2 sun), (b) solar-vapor conversion efficiency (η SVC = 186%), and (c) η STC (87%) among known materials. Such robust performance is retained for beyond 30 days of continuous operation and under different solar power (1 sun to 5 sun). Furthermore, active space heating (outlet air temperature = 346 ± 3 K) using NCF coatings is demonstrated.