1 State Key Laboratory of Integrated Optoelectronics, JLU Region, College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China;
2 Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering, Ministry of Education, College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China;
3 Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials MOE, School of Materials Science & Engineering, Jilin Provincial International Cooperation Key Laboratory of High-Efficiency Clean Energy Materials, Electron Microscopy Center, International Center of Future Science, Jilin University, Changchun, China;
4 School of Physics and Electronics, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Funds:
the Natural Science Foundation of Jilin Province under Grant No. 20230101350JC and YDZJ202402001CXJD
the National Ten Thousand Talent Program for Young Top-notch Talents
This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant No. 2022YFB4600400
the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 62275100 and T2325014
the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
Solar-driven interfacial water purification (SDIWP) has emerged as a green, cost-effective, and sustainable technology for waste/sea water treatment. However, at present, innovative smart water treatment systems that enable high-efficiency water purification through multiform solar schemes are rare. Herein, we report a light-propelled photocatalytic evaporator based on semi-metallic reduced graphene oxide (RGO)/ titanium carbide MXene-titanium dioxide (Ti3C2Tx-TiO2) ternary hybrid foams for multi-scheme SDIWP. The RGO/Ti3C2Tx-TiO2 foam is prepared by freeze-drying induced self-assembly (FDISA) of Ti3C2Tx and graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets by which an in-situ redox reaction between Ti3C2Tx and GO nanosheets occurs and TiO2 nanoparticles are generated simultaneously. The synergistic effect leads to the formation of the semi-metallic RGO/Ti3C2Tx-TiO2 framework with the Ti-O-C covalent bonding between RGO and Ti3C2Tx. Under light irradiation, the photogenerated carriers in RGO/Ti3C2Tx-TiO2 can occupy the quantum-confined graphene-like states in RGO with an average lifetime of 0.8 ps, this value is 2 orders of magnitude shorter than that of GO and Ti3C2Tx. As a result, the RGO/Ti3C2Tx-TiO2 foam shows photocatalytic degradation activity and photothermal conversion ability, enabling multi-scheme SDIWP. Owing to its excellent photothermal properties and quantum-confined superfluidic structures, the RGO/ Ti3C2Tx-TiO2 foam exhibits superior vapor generation performance (1.72 kg m-2 h-1). Furthermore, the photocatalytic evaporator can be remotely manipulated as a floating robot for water treatment through programmable light navigation via photothermal Marangoni propulsion. This work provides a new approach for developing robotic SDIWP systems.
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