Scalable Production of Integrated Graphene Nanoarchitectures for Ultrafast Solar-Thermal Conversion and Vapor Generation

Solar-thermal conversion is a key technology in harvesting solar energy for a diverse range of applications including water vapor generation. However, simultaneously ultrafast and highly efficient solar-thermal conversion and scalable fabrication of materials and devices to achieve such performance in practical applications still remain the key unmet challenges. Here we report a hierarchical nanoarchitecture that integrates vertically oriented graphene nanosheets and highly porous graphene aerogel to achieve ultrafast solar-thermal response (a temperature increase of 169.7 degrees C within 1 s), resulting from superior photonic absorption and excellent thermal insulation. Through engineering surface water pathways and minimizing interfacial thermal resistances, ultrafast solar-thermal response (reaching 100 degrees C within 34 s) and simultaneously high energy efficiency (89.4%) for saturated vapor generation at 10 sun is achieved. Importantly, we demonstrate high-throughput, scalable fabrication of the unique nanoarchitecture. Ultrafast medical sterilization is demonstrated as a potential practical application of this green, nanotechnology-enhanced system for large-scale solar energy harvesting.