Multifunctional photothermal materials based on natural pumices for high efficiency solar‐driven interface evaporator

The application of solar-driven interface evaporation photothermal materials in the complex water environment is facing great challenges, and the development of multifunctional photothermal materials is great significance to the practical application process. In this study, a new kind of photothermal material was first prepared based on the natural pumices, which shows great advantages of lightweight, superhydrophilicity, porous property, and heat insulation. To improve its light absorption capacity and photocatalytic effect, carbon and Ag+ were uniformly loaded on pumices (named P-C-Ag+). The as-resulted P-C-Ag+ shows an evaporation rate of 1.395 kg m−2 h−1 which refers to an evaporation efficiency of 88.80% in simulated seawater under 1 kW m−2 illumination. In the rooftop experiment, the cumulative evaporation capacity of the simulated solar evaporator with P-C-Ag+ in 8 hours can reach about 7.25 kg m−2. Meanwhile, almost no salt crystallization was found in the surface of P-C-Ag+ during the continuous evaporation process. The P-C-Ag+ has a good inhibitory effect on Escherichia coli and algae, and can degrade color dyes, which is also beneficial to water environment, thus holding great potential as multifunctional photothermal material for solar steam generation and water treatment.