Double-Layer MWCNTs@HPPS Photothermal Paper for Water Purification with Strong Acid-Alkali Corrosion Resistance

Abstract

Solar-driven interfacial evaporation technology has been identified as a promising method to relieve the global water crisis, and it is particularly important to design an ideal structure of the solar thermal conversion evaporation device. In this paper, hydrophilic polyphenylene sulfide (HPPS) paper with loose structure and appropriate water transmission performance was designed as the based-material, and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) layer with excellent photothermal conversion performance was constructed to realize the high-efficiency solar-driven evaporation. Under tail swabbing mode, the cold evaporation surface on the back of the evaporator greatly improved the evaporation rate, cut off the heat transfer channel to bulk water, and achieved the maximum evaporation rate of 1.23 L/m2·h. Ethyl cellulose (EC) was introduced to adjust the water supply performance of HPPS layer, and a large specific surface area of cold evaporation was obtained, thus improving the water evaporation rate. In the simulation experiment of seawater desalination and dye wastewater treatment, it showed good water purification capacity and acid/alkali-resistance, which had great practical application significance.

Keywords

• multiwalled carbon nanotubes
• PPS paper
• solar driven evaporation
• desalination