Bio-inspired molybdenum carbide/carbon-based aerogel with advanced thermal management as a solar evaporator

Both improvements of water transportation and thermal management inevitably sacrifice the mechanical robustness of solar evaporators, while our anisotropic structure not only achieved the tradeoff between thermal insulation and water transportation, but also exhibited excellent structural strength. Herein, a bio-inspired molybdenum carbide/carbon-based aerogel constructed by a bidirectional freezing technique (noted as MoCCA1) is applied for solar steam generation. The biomimetic solar evaporator exhibits the anisotropic structure of lamellar layers with interconnected bridges for achieving low thermal conductivity (0.18027 W K−1 m−1) to suppress thermal dissipation and ultrafast water transportation. The desired MoCCA1 behaves an evaporation rate as high as ∼2.41 kg m−2 h−1 and a superb photothermal conversion efficiency of 95.8% under one sun illumination. The excellent durability and long-term stability of MoCCA1 allow for significantly practical application in terms of solar desalination. More importantly, the highly intensive thermal energy is effectively used for expediting the oil adsorption with the adsorption capacity of 7.72 g g−1. The well-designed structure opens up new horizons for sufficient utilization of solar energy for synchronous freshwater generation and adsorption oil.