Superelastic 3D Assembled Clay/Graphene Aerogels for Continuous Solar Desalination and Oil/Organic Solvent Absorption

Abstract

Abstract Superelastic, arbitrary‐shaped, and 3D assembled clay/graphene aerogels (CGAs) are fabricated using commercial foam as sacrificial skeleton. The CGAs possess superelasticity under compressive strain of 95% and compressive stress of 0.09–0.23 MPa. The use of clay as skeletal support significantly reduces the use of graphene by 50%. The hydrophobic CGAs show high solvent absorption capacity of 186–519 times its own weight. Moreover, both the compression and combustion methods can be adopted for reusing the CGAs. In particular, it is demonstrated a design of 3D assembled hydrophilic CGA equipped with salt collection system for continuous solar desalination. Due to energy recovery and brine transport management promoted by this design, the 3D assembled CGA system exhibits an extremely high evaporation rate of 4.11 kg m −2 h −1 and excellent salt‐resistant property without salt precipitation even in 20 wt% brine for continuous 36 h illumination (1 kW m −2 ), which is the best reported result from the solar desalination devices. More importantly, salts can be collected conveniently by squeezing and drying the solution out of the salt collection system. The work provides new insights into the design of 3D assembled CGAs and advances their applications in continuous solar desalination and efficient oil/organic solvent adsorption.