Polyaniline-Coated MOFs Nanorod Arrays for Efficient Evaporation-Driven Electricity Generation and Solar Steam Desalination

Though evaporation-driven electricity generation has emerged as a novel eco-friendly energy and attracted intense interests, it is typically demonstrated in pure water or a very low salt concentration. Integrating evaporation-driven electricity generation and solar steam desalination simultaneously should be more promising. Herein, a polyaniline coated metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) nanorod arrays membrane is synthesized which inherits the merits of both polyaniline and MOFs, demonstrating nice stability, good interfacial solar steam desalination, and evaporation-driven electricity generation. Moreover, an integrated system based on this hybrid membrane achieves good interfacial solar-heating evaporation and prominently enhanced evaporation-driven electricity generation under one sun. Notably, the realization of effective seawater desalination and efficient evaporation-driven electricity generation simultaneously by the non-carbon-based materials is reported for the first time, which provides a new alternative way for cogenerating both freshwater and electricity by harvesting energy from seawater and solar light.

Automated summary

A polyaniline coated metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) nanorod arrays membrane has been successfully synthesized, demonstrating good stability and performance in both solar steam desalination and evaporation-driven electricity generation. This non-carbon-based material represents a new approach to effectively combine seawater desalination and electricity generation, providing a novel way to produce freshwater and electricity by harnessing energy from seawater and solar light.