Self-Supporting Nanoporous Copper Film with High Porosity and Broadband Light Absorption for Efficient Solar Steam Generation

Bin Yu; Yan Wang; Ying Zhang; Zhonghua Zhang

doi:10.1007/s40820-023-01063-z

Self-Supporting Nanoporous Copper Film with High Porosity and Broadband Light Absorption for Efficient Solar Steam Generation

Nanomicro Lett. 2023 Apr 10;15(1):94. doi: 10.1007/s40820-023-01063-z.

Authors

Bin Yu¹, Yan Wang², Ying Zhang¹, Zhonghua Zhang³

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory for Liquid-Solid Structural Evolution and Processing of Materials (Ministry of Education), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jingshi Road 17923, Jinan, 250061, People's Republic of China.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Jinan, West Road of Nan Xinzhuang 336, Jinan, 250022, People's Republic of China.
³ Key Laboratory for Liquid-Solid Structural Evolution and Processing of Materials (Ministry of Education), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jingshi Road 17923, Jinan, 250061, People's Republic of China. zh_zhang@sdu.edu.cn.

Abstract

Solar steam generation (SSG) is a potential technology for freshwater production, which is expected to address the global water shortage problem. Some noble metals with good photothermal conversion performance have received wide concerns in SSG, while high cost limits their practical applications for water purification. Herein, a self-supporting nanoporous copper (NP-Cu) film was fabricated by one-step dealloying of a specially designed Al₉₈Cu₂ precursor with a dilute solid solution structure. In-situ and ex-situ characterizations were performed to reveal the phase and microstructure evolutions during dealloying. The NP-Cu film shows a unique three-dimensional bicontinuous ligament-channel structure with high porosity (94.8%), multi scale-channels and nanoscale ligaments (24.2 ± 4.4 nm), leading to its strong broadband absorption over the 200-2500 nm wavelength More importantly, the NP-Cu film exhibits excellent SSG performance with high evaporation rate, superior efficiency and good stability. The strong desalination ability of NP-Cu also manifests its potential applications in seawater desalination. The related mechanism has been rationalized based upon the nanoporous network, localized surface plasmon resonance effect and hydrophilicity.

Keywords: Broadband solar absorption; Dealloying; Localized surface plasmon resonance; Nanoporous copper; Seawater desalination; Solar steam generation.