Plant leaves inspired sunlight-driven purifier for high-efficiency clean water production

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<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Natural vascular plants leaves rely on differences in osmotic pressure, transpiration and guttation to produce tons of clean water, powered by sunlight. Inspired by this, we report a sunlight-driven purifier for high-efficiency water purification and production. This sunlight-driven purifier is characterized by a negative temperature response poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) hydrogel (PN) anchored onto a superhydrophilic melamine foam skeleton, and a layer of PNIPAm modified graphene (PG) filter membrane coated outside. Molecular dynamics simulation and experimental results show that the superhydrophilicity of the relatively rigid melamine skeleton significantly accelerates the swelling/deswelling rate of the PNPG-F purifier. Under one sun, this rational engineered structure offers a collection of 4.2 kg m<jats:sup>−2</jats:sup> h<jats:sup>−1</jats:sup> and an ionic rejection of > 99% for a single PNPG-F from brine feed via the cooperation of transpiration and guttation. We envision that such a high-efficiency sunlight driven system could have great potential applications in diverse water treatments.</jats:p>

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