Topology-Controlled Hydration of Polymer Network in Hydrogels for Solar-Driven Wastewater Treatment

Solar-driven interfacial evaporation provides a promising method for sustainable freshwater production. However, high energy consumption of vapor generation fundamentally restricts practicality of solar-driven wastewater treatment. Here a facile strategy is reported to control the hydration of polymer network in hydrogels, where densely cross-linked polymers serving as a framework are functionalized by a highly hydratable polymeric network. The hydration of polymer chains generates a large amount of weakly bounded water molecules, facilitating the water evaporation. As a result, the hydrogel-based solar evaporator can extract water from a variety of contaminants such as salts, detergents, and heavy metal components using solar energy with long-term durability and stability. This work demonstrates an effective way to tune the interaction between water and materials at a molecular level, as well as an energy-efficient water treatment technology toward wastewater containing complex contaminants.