Controllable 3D interconnected featured pore structure of transition metal borides-carbonitride/MoS2 for efficiently solar evaporation and wastewater purification

• Design of multifunction photothermal composites of Transition Metal Borides-Carbonitride/MoS 2 . • The composites have the characteristic of 3D interconnected and controllable porous structure. • The TiB 2 -Ti (C, N)/MoS 2 -24 h shows a high evaporation rate of 2.87 kg·m −2 ·h −1 under one-sun. • TiB 2 -Ti (C, N)/MoS 2 -24 h evaporator exhibits salt self-cleaning, stability and durability. • The TiB 2 -Ti (C, N)/MoS 2 shows excellent desalination and wastewater purification abilities. Interface solar steam generation is considered a promising method to effectively obtain freshwater from seawater or wastewater. Particularly, designing photothermal composites, which are stable in the marine environment, and with controllable porous structure, is critically important. Herein, a multifunctional porous ceramic composite was designed by decorating the transition metal borides-carbonitride with 1T/2H MoS 2 (TiB 2 -Ti (C, N)/MoS 2 -24 h), which can achieve a high solar absorption of ≈95.3% at full-spectrum and evaporation rate of 2.87 kg m −2 h −1 under one-sun illumination. The super-hydrophilicity, macropore trait, 3D interconnected porous structure, high porosity, and intrinsic nature of TiB 2 -Ti (C, N) endow the TiB 2 -Ti (C, N)/MoS 2 -24h composite with strong salt self-cleaning, stability and excellent durability. Furthermore, another big advantage of TiB 2 -Ti (C, N)/MoS 2 -24h is the high pollutants removal efficiency, which attributes to its interconnected featured pore structure, rough pore wall, and abundant active sites of MoS 2 . As a result, the removal efficiency of heavy metal ions and organic dyes can achieve 99.9% and 100%, respectively. It is anticipated that this work is a promising attempt with enormous potential to develop multifunctional ceramic photothermal composites for efficient solar evaporation and wastewater purification in future applications.