Solar-energy driven, fresh water production from seawater has been considered as a promising strategy to yield potable water. However this approach is typically expensive, energy intensive, as well as poorly yielding of clean water under natural sunlight. This has limited the practical application of solar-energy driven, fresh water production. Accordingly, we have investigated the development of new films with low cost and higher efficiency for solar desalination. We designed a hybrid film with a high desalination efficiency of over 99 % and the maximum desalination capacity of 10 kg/m²/h under simulated sunlight. The hybrid film was composed of a hydrophilic polymer framework (chitin) and a solar absorber (CuS) with an abundant porous structure for internal channel transportation. Chitin can greatly promote water evaporation in the hydrogel network, whilst the presence of CuS in the network facilitates efficient light-to-heat conversion. The internal channels of the chitin composite maintain a sufficient water supply for continuous solar vapor generation. Such hybrid films also have the advantages of excellent strength, high elasticity, as well as high cycling rates.

太阳能驱动的海水生产淡水被认为是生产饮用水的有前途的策略。然而，这种方法通常是昂贵的、能源密集型的，并且在自然阳光下产生的清洁水很差。这限制了太阳能驱动的淡水生产的实际应用。因此，我们研究了用于太阳能淡化的低成本和更高效率的新薄膜的开发。我们设计了一种混合膜，具有超过 99% 的高脱盐效率和 10 kg/m ²的最大脱盐能力/h 在模拟阳光下。混合膜由亲水聚合物骨架（几丁质）和太阳能吸收剂（CuS）组成，具有丰富的多孔结构，用于内部通道传输。几丁质可以极大地促进水凝胶网络中的水分蒸发，而网络中 CuS 的存在促进了有效的光热转换。几丁质复合材料的内部通道为连续的太阳能蒸汽产生保持充足的水供应。这种混合薄膜还具有优异的强度、高弹性以及高循环率的优点。