Fibrous MXene Aerogels with Tunable Pore Structures for High-Efficiency Desalination of Contaminated Seawater

Abstract

Highlights The super-elastic and robust MXene aerogels are created herein by assembling the 1D fibrous MXenes with sufficiently large aspect ratios and superior flexibility. The underlying regulatory mechanism and a complete diagram for the pore structure evolution of MXene aerogels are revealed for the first time, which are particularly instructive for future structure-specific designs. Fibrous MXene aerogels exhibit 8.3% plastic deformation at the 1000th compressions and achieve high evaporation rate (1.48 kg m−2 h−1) and light to thermal conversion efficiency (92.08%) on oil-contaminated seawater.

Keywords

• Fibrous MXene aerogels
• Tunable pore structures
• Modularized solar evaporator
• Photothermal desalination