Using abundant solar energy to generate steam offers unique solution overcoming the lack of freshwater resources. Despite extensive explorations, low-cost devices with high efficiency are still critically wanting. In this work, the extremely cheap carbonized kelp with good stability, high solar absorption (∼93%), porous microstructure, and hydrophilic surface is found to be efficient for solar steam generation (SSG) and seawater desalination for the first time. A SSG device meeting the requirements of the “most stable triangle” is thus designed. The carbonized kelp is utilized as the solar absorber, with thermal insulation by an expanded polystyrene foam and water supply by a fiber cotton wick via the capillary force. A high solar to steam conversion efficiency of 84.8% and evaporation rate of 1.351 kg·m^-2·h^-1 are attained under 1 sun irradiation. This work develops a promising and bioinspired device with long-term stability for SSG that can be produced economically (∼3.8 $/m²).

Particulate matter (PM) air pollution has been established as a significant threat to public health and a destructive factor to the climate and eco-systems. In order to eliminate the effects of PM air pollution, various air filtering strategies based on electrospun nanofibers have recently been developed. However, to date, almost none of the existing nanofibers based air filters can meet the requirements of high-performance air PM filtering, including high PM removal efficiency, low resistance to airflow, and long service life, etc. For the first time, we report a fabrication process using the electrospinning method for air filters based on thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) nanofibers. The average diameters of TPU nanofibers are tunable from 0.14 ± 0.06 μ m to 0.82 ± 0.22 μ m by changing the TPU concentrations in polymeric solutions. The optimized TPU nanofibers based air filters demonstrate the attractive attributes of high PM _2.5 removal efficiency up to 98.92%, good optical transparency of ∼60%, low pressure drop of ∼10 Pa, high quality factor of 0.45 Pa ⁻¹ , and long service life under the flow rate of 200 ml min ⁻¹ , which is ground-breaking compared with the existing nanofibers based air filters. These TPU nanofibers based air filters, with the excellent filtration performance and light transmittance, will shed light on the future research of nanofibers for various filtration applications and greatly benefit the public health by reducing the effects of PM air pollution.