Solar-driven, sorption-based atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) offers a cost-effective solution to freshwater scarcity in arid areas. Creating AWH devices capable of performing multiple adsorption–desorption cycles per day is crucial for increasing water production rates matching human water requirements. However, achieving rapid-cycling AWH in passive harvesters has been challenging due to sorbents’ slow water adsorption–desorption dynamics. Here we report an MOF-derived nanoporous carbon, a sorbent endowed with fast sorption kinetics and excellent photothermal properties, for high-yield AWH. The optimized structure (40% adsorption sites and ~1.0 nm pore size) has superior sorption kinetics due to the minimized diffusion resistance. Moreover, the carbonaceous sorbent exhibits fast desorption kinetics enabled by efficient solar-thermal heating and high thermal conductivity. A rapid-cycling water harvester based on nanoporous carbon derived from metal–organic frameworks can produce 0.18 L kg_carbon⁻¹ h⁻¹ of water at 30% relative humidity under one-sun illumination. The proposed design strategy is helpful to develop high-yield, solar-driven AWH for advanced freshwater-generation systems.

太阳能驱动、基于吸附的大气水收集 (AWH) 为干旱地区的淡水短缺问题提供了一种具有成本效益的解决方案。创建能够每天执行多个吸附-解吸循环的 AWH 设备对于提高符合人类用水需求的产水率至关重要。然而，由于吸附剂缓慢的水吸附-解吸动力学，在被动收集器中实现快速循环 AWH 一直具有挑战性。在这里，我们报告了一种 MOF 衍生的纳米多孔碳，一种具有快速吸附动力学和优异光热性能的吸附剂，可用于高产 AWH。优化的结构（40% 吸附位点和 ~1.0 nm 孔径）由于最小化扩散阻力而具有出色的吸附动力学。而且，碳质吸附剂通过有效的太阳能热加热和高导热性表现出快速解吸动力学。基于金属有机框架衍生的纳米多孔碳的快速循环水收集器可以产生 0.18 L kg_碳⁻¹  h ⁻¹的水在 30% 的相对湿度在一个太阳光照下。所提出的设计策略有助于为先进的淡水发电系统开发高产、太阳能驱动的 AWH。