Scalable and low-cost synthesis of black amorphous Al-Ti-O nanostructure for high-efficient photothermal desalination

Black Al-Ti-O hybrid membrane for high-efficient photothermal desalination: Black Al-Ti-O hybrid can efficiently absorb most of solar spectrum with broad reached to 90.23% is reported. The black Al-Ti-O hybrid were assembled into a micrporous poly(vinylidene fluoride) membrane that can naturally float on the surface of water, achieving an high efficiency of 77.52% for desalination under simulated solar light irradiance (1 Sun), and an outstanding durability upon continuous running over 10 cycles. Based on the photothermal, a solar seawater desalination system was designed and manufactured, and it can produce clean water up to ~ 4 L m−2 day−1 under current solar irradiation (~ 820 W m−2).398