Facile fabrication of polydopamine nanosphere-decorated fabric for solar steam generation

Solar steam generation has been regarded as a promising technology to obtain clean water from wastewater or seawater through converting incident sunlight to heat. Fabrics can be easily combined with many photothermal materials by various methods and possess a unique porous structure for efficient water transport and vapor diffusion. Herein, a solar steam generator with a rough surface based on novel polydopamine nanospheres grown onto fabric (PDANSs@fabric) is designed and fabricated by a one-step method. Consequently, the developed evaporator could achieve a water evaporation rate of 1.48 kg m ⁻² h ⁻¹ under 1 sun illumination. Moreover, the as-prepared PDANSs@fabric-based solar steam generator keeps a close level of water evaporation performance after washing for 30 min, exhibiting good stability and washability in steam generation. In addition, the designed evaporator can be applied in various water conditions, including seawater, dye wastewater and heavy metal ion wastewater, offering great inspiration in the fields of seawater desalination, wastewater treatment and energy collection.