Structural Design Strategies of Sustainable Wood-Derived Solar-Driven Interfacial Evaporator for Advancing Water Purification.

Abstract

High energy consumption poses a significant limitation to conventional water purification technologies. Solar-driven interfacial evaporation (SDIE) has emerged as a sustainable alternative. Wood, endowed with its inherent hierarchical porous structure, exceptional hydrophilicity, low thermal conductivity, and biocompatibility, stands out as an ideal substrate for SDIE. When used in SDIE, wood not only reduces embodied carbon by substituting energy-intensive materials but also continues to store biogenic carbon throughout its service life, thereby lowering the device's overall carbon footprint. This review synthesizes research advances in wood-based SDIE (W-SDIE), focusing on structural design strategies for performance enhancement. Specifically, it elaborates on the advantages of wood's microstructure and chemical composition as a substrate; summarizes performance optimization approaches across three dimensions: heat management (light absorber design, insulating structure, and environmental energy harvesting), water management (water transport pathway, wettability regulation, and evaporation enthalpy reduction), and salt management (water-salt transport regulation, salt-oriented crystallization, and self-cleaning mechanism); and outlines applications in desalination, wastewater treatment, photocatalytic degradation, and energy coupling. Ultimately, current challenges and potential solutions are discussed, providing insights for the future development of W-SDIE.