Alkaline earth metals doped VO2 nanoparticles for enhanced interfacial solar steam generation

Interfacial solar steam generation (SSG) as a green desalination technique offers significant potential to obtain freshwater. For the first time, the performance of alkaline earth metals doped VO2 nanoparticles (VO2@alkaline earth metals) as highly efficient photothermal materials coated on poplar wood as a sustainable substrate in SSG of seawater is investigated. Among the fabricated photoabsorbers, the wood coated with VO2 doped with Ba, W/VO2-Ba, had the highest solar evaporation efficiency of 93.45% under 1 sun (1 sun = 1 kW m−2). For this photoabsorber, the concentration of Na+ of seawater (3138.19 ppm) reduced to 2.63 ppm after desalination. The ratio of preparation cost to evaporation flux was calculated as 1.16 USD kg−1 m−2 h−1. The efficiency of W/VO2-Ba did not change significantly after 20 cycles.