[Nano Letter] Engineering Biomimetic Nanostructured “Melanosome” Textiles for Advanced Solar-to-Thermal Devices
writer：Peng Xiao, W. Yang, N. Qiu, S. Li, F. Ni, C. Zhang, J. Gu, S.W. Kuo, and Tao Chen*
keywords：biomimetic ultra-black textile, melanosomes-like hierarchical nanospheres, solar-to-thermal conversion, solar vaporization, superhydrophobic thermal management
source：期刊
specific source：Nano Letter, 2022, 22, 9343-9350
Issue time：2022年
In nature, deep-sea fishes featured with close-packed melanosomes can remarkably lower the light reflection, which have inspired us to design ultra-black coatings for enhanced solar-to-thermal conversion. Herein, a biomimetic ultra-black textile is developed enabled by the formation of hierarchical polypyrrole (Ppy) nanospheres. The fabricated textile exhibits prominently suppressed reflectance of lower than 4% and highly enhanced absorption of up to 96%. Further experimental results and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation evidences the formation process of hierarchical nanospheres. Based on high-efficient solar-to-thermal conversion, the biomimetic textile with desirable conductivity allows the development of a salt-free solar evaporator, enabling a sustainable seawater evaporation rate of up to 1.54 kg m-2 h-1 under 1 sun. Furthermore, the biomimetic hierarchical textile exhibits good superhydrophobicity, enhanced photothermal property and high electro-thermal conversion, demonstrating the significant potentials in wearable thermal management (rescue vests) in water conditions.