Highly Elastic, Robust, and Efficient Hydrogel Solar Absorber against Harsh Environmental Impacts

Solar distillation is a promising approach for addressing water scarcity, but relentless stress/strain perturbations induced by wind and waves would inevitably cause structural damage to solar absorbers. Despite notable advances in efficient solar absorbers, there have been no reports of compliant and robust solar absorbers withstanding practical mechanical impacts. Herein, an elastic and robust hydrogel absorber that exhibited a high level of evaporation performance was fabricated by introducing ion-coordinated MXene nanosheets as photothermal conversion units and mechanically enhanced fillers. The ion-coordinated MXene nanosheets acting as strong cross-linking points provided excellent elasticity and robustness to the hydrogel absorber. As a result, the evaporation rate of hydrogel absorber, with a high initial value of 2.61 kg m–2 h–1 under one sun irradiation, remained at 2.15 kg m–2 h–1 under a 100% tensile strain state and 2.40 kg m–2 h–1 after 10 000 stretching–releasing cycles. This continuous and stable water desalination approach provides a promising device for actual seawater distillation

Additional file 1 of Aligned nanofibrous collagen membranes from fish swim bladder as a tough and acid-resistant suture for pH-regulated stomach perforation and tendon rupture

Additional file 1: Supplementary Fig. S1. PGA with highly complex structure under SEM. Supplementary Fig. S2. Two other crosslinking methods. Supplementary Fig. S3. The detailed process of fabricating DCDS suture with standardization. Supplementary Fig. S4. The tensile strength of double-layers swim bladder with and without crosslinking