Hollow carbon fiber wrapped by regular rGO wave-like folds for efficient solar driven interfacial water steam generation

Abstract Fresh water is an indispensable precious resource for human and industrial development. Although about 71% surface of the Earth is covered by seawater, many people, especially for remote areas, still suffer from water scarcity. Efficient seawater desalination is an effective way to solve the shortages of fresh water and energy. In this paper, hollow carbon fiber (HCF) wrapped by regular reduced graphene oxide (rGO) wave-like folds (rGO@HCF) is prepared according to the differences in thermal shrinkage performance between graphene oxide (GO) and willow catkins fiber (WCF). Under one sun light irradiation (1 kW m − 2 ), the dry surface temperature and wet surface temperature of the resulting evaporator reached up to 119.1 ℃ and 61.7 ℃, respectively, and the water steam production rate reached 3.42 kg m − 2 h − 1 . Also, for the outdoor experiment, the rGO@HCF exhibits good evaporator performance which reach up 27.8 kg m − 2 day − 1 . Additionally, rGO@HCF not only shows good seawater desalination performance, but also shows excellent durability for longtime work of the outdoor. This research results not only provide a new method for fiber-like agricultural or forestry by-products utilization, but also provide necessary theoretical basis for the surface structure modification of carbon fiber.