Solar interfacial evaporation using FeNPs@MXene/rGO photothermal membrane

Solar interfacial evaporation using photothermal materials emerges as an environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient approach to water purification. However, single-component photothermal materials suffer from limited solar absorption and low photothermal performance, necessitating the development of composite systems. Here, we present a photothermal composite membrane fabricated via in-situ growth of iron oxide nanoparticles (FeNPs) on MXene followed by electrospinning with reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and polylactic acid (PLA). Our experiments indicate that the composite membrane exhibits significant temperature enhancement with light irradiation within 65 min (∆T ~7 ℃) and high water evaporation flux (J  ~70 g·m-2·h-1), outperforming membranes of both rGO@PLA (∆T ~5.5 ℃, J ~48 g·m-2·h-1) and MXene@PLA (∆T ~5.5 ℃, J ~50 g·m-2·h-1). Further experiments indicate that the composite membrane has the robust photothermal performance in both simulated seawater and Millipore water. Our findings provide a novel approach for engineering photothermal materials with promising applications in seawater desalination and wastewater treatment.