Composite Materials: A Robust CuCr₂O₄/SiO₂ Composite Photothermal Material with Underwater Black Property and Extremely High Thermal Stability for Solar‐Driven Water Evaporation (Adv. Sustainable Syst. 3/2018)

Given the great abundance of and inexhaustibility of sunlight, tapping into solar energy to produce fresh water is a promising solution for the current challenges of water and energy shortage. Solar-driven water distillation utilizes efficient photothermal material to capture and convert solar energy to heat. The heat is in turn used to evaporate water out of source water not suitable for drinking and the condensate is collected as fresh water. In article number 1700145, Peng Wang and co-workers design a pitaya-like structured composite photothermal material which has excellent photothermal performance, great mechanical strength, thermal stability and thermal shock resistance. Amazingly, the material can be directly burned in fire to remove its surface organic and inorganic contaminants making it the first photothermal material to have fouling-control design.