Reduced Graphene Oxide Coated Hollow Polyester Fibers for Efficient Solar Steam Generation

Solar steam generation based on photothermal materials has emerged as a green and efficient technology for a broad variety of applications, such as solar energy harvesting, desalination, power generation, wastewater treatment, and so on. Herein, the fabrication of a kind of a novel photothermal material that is prepared by simple coating of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) onto commercial hollow polyester fibers (HPFs) for efficient solar steam generation is reported. The as-resulted rGO-wrapped HPFs possess a porous structure, low thermal conductivity (0.042 W m(-1) k(-1)), and broad light absorption (85%), which satisfies the criterion for construction of ideal photothermal materials. As expected, a high solar-thermal efficiency of approximate to 81% is obtained at 1 kW m(-2) irradiation, showing great potential for practical applications based on high solar energy conversion efficiency and a simple and, in particular, scalable manufacturing process.